A VOICE 



FROM 



South Carolina 






JOURNAL OF A RKPUTHD KU-KLUX, 



AND AN APPENDIX. 






BY 

JOHN A. LELAND, Ph.D. 



CHART, ESTON, S. C. 

WALKER, EVANS & COGSWELL 

Nos. 3 Broad and log East Bay Streets. 
1879. 



C O P Y R I G H '1\ 1879 
J. A. Leland. 



DEDICATED 



TO THE 



W f) M E N F S U T H CAROLINA 



PREFACE. 



The following pages have grown into the proportions of a book, without 
much design on the part of the author. His purpose, at first, was merely 
to transcribe the journal of his "jail experience," at the request of some 
particular friends. This, he found, would be unsatisfactory, without some 
account of the condition of things in Laurens County, at the time of his 
arrest. 

But the state of things in Laurens was anomalous, resulting from causes 
which affected the whole State alike. A resume of Reconstruction in South 
Carolina, therefore, seemed necessary j and thus, step by step, he was led 
back to the deluge of Secession. 

The narrative was begun in 1874, and continued, from time to time, till 
the beginning of 1876. The writer then closed with the twelfth chapter; 
and made efforts to publish in that centennial year As all these efforts 
failed, the MS. was still on hand, when the wonderful campaign of " Hamp- 
ton and Home Rule,'' brought about another Revolution. This rendered 
two additional chapters necessary, to come down to the date of the regen- 
eration of the State. 

The author now sends forth these disjecta membra with many misgivings. 
No one can see the defects of the work more plainly than he does himself > 
but the remedy would be to re-write the whole, and such a reconstruction 
might prove as complete a failure and wreck as the one he has attempted to 
describe. 

Begging indulgence for thi'i, his first attempt at authorship, he earnestly 
requests a patient perusal of all the facts herein recorded, with the assurance 
that there is 

" Nothing extenuate. 
Nor aught set down in malice." 



i 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER FIRST. 

Introductory. 

PAGE. 

South Carolina before and during Reconstruction. Citizen of the 
old school — Scalawag of the new. Resume on Slavery. Moral Mania, 
Driven to Secession Dr. Thornwell on the Secession Convention... ii 

CHAPTER SECOND. 
After the War. 

Sherman's Track: Columbia, Beaufort, and the Sea Islands, Charles- 
ton, State generally. Military Courts, Freedman's Bureau. Massa- 
chusetts and her Colored Regiments 24 

CHAPTER THIRD. 
Reconstruction. 

President Johnson's Policy — First Reconstruction. Congressional 
Policy — Second Reconstruction. Carpet-baggers come to the front. 
The Secret of his Power, and a Theory of his Dynasty. Gov. Scott. 
Hon. W. D. Porter Reform-Party. Constabulary Forces. Colored 
Militia 36 

CHAPTER FOURTH. 

Reconstruction in Laurens County. 

Joe Crews. Military Barbecues. Constabulary Force. Counter 
Organization. Election Riot of 1870. Circuit Court and the Arms. 
Outrages at Night 5I 



VIll. CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER FIFTH. 
Joe Crews. 

PAGE. 

Escape from Riot. Counting the Ballots. Retreat from Laurens. 
Senator Y. J. P. Owens, Joe's Power of Imagination 65 

CHAPTER SIXTH. 

Laurens — after the Riot. 

Rumors Scott and Committee of Citizens Scott and Joe 
Crews Parties Arrested by State Constabulary, Blackmailing. Re- 
lease under Habeas. Corpus. Judge Vernon and Laurens Prisoners 75 

CHAPTER SEVENTH. 

M.^RTiAL Law in Laurens. 

Ku-Klux, probable rise. Merrill, in York. County. Committee 
sent to Washington from Laurens. Martial Law proclaimed. Whole- 
sale Arrests in 1872. Journal of a reputed Ku-Klux for three days... 86 



I 



CHAPTER EIGHTH. 
Journal of a Prisoner. 



Laurens to Union Union to Columbia. First night in Columbia. 
Kindness of friends. Mrs. Adger, Mrs. Woodrow. Dr. Plumer 
and his Tin Pails. Religious influence on Prisoners. Gen. Preston's 
" spiritual comfort." Ben. Ballou. Sim Pearson 98 

CHAPTER NINTH. 

Journal Continued. 

First appearance before Commissioners. True position of the Author. 
Farce in the Court Room On to Charleston. Communion Scene. 
Letter to Judge Field. Treatment of " Mark " Colored State 
Prisoners. Clinton Prisoners in handcuffs. Miss.Gussie W., Mrs. 
Woodrow, Dr. Plumer 108 



CONTENTS. IX. 

CHAPTER TENTH. 
Journal Concluded. 

PAGE, 

Clinton Prisoners in Charleston. Doggerel to Sim. Pearson. 
Handcuffs and Capt. Mc's wrists. Laurens Prisoners taken to 
Charleston, Kindness of' Charleston friends. Jail in Charleston. 
House of Correction. *'True Bills'' for "Conspiracy and Murder." 
Release under bail. Return Home 121 

CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 

Recent Reconstruction. 

York County. Maj. Merrill. Death of Joe Crews. Successive 
efforts at Reform. Carpenter. Tomlinson. Green. Chamberlain 
Moses and Whipper. Indignation Meeting. Montgomery Moses 133 

CHAPTER TWELFTH. 

Centennial Sentiments. 

Low estate of South Carolina President Grant. Revolutionary 
Reminiscences. Massachusetts and South Carolina. Tariff^ Question. 
Slavery. Bunker Hill Centennial Washington Light Infantry. 
Gens, Bartlett and Fitz Hugh Lee, Politicians 143 

POSTSCRIPT CHAPTER FIRST, 

Hampton's Campaign. 

Why ''Postscript." Centennial Exposition. "Counting in" the 
President. Fort Moultrie's Centennial. " Bloody Shirt," Hamburg 
Horror, Ellenton Riots Chamberlain, First Democratic Conven- 
tion Second Democratic Convention, Nomination of Wade Hamp- 
ton. Hampton's Campaign, Women of the State, Rice-field 
Strikes. Disbanding " Rifle Clubs." Hampton's Peace Policy ifx 



X. CONTENTS. 

POSTSCRIPT CHAPTER SECOND 

Redemption and Home Rule. 

PAGE. 

Hampton elected. Returning Board and Supreme Court. Judge 
Bend. State House garrisoned Legislature convenes Two Houses 
organized and sitting in one Hall. Starvation versus Stench. 
Hampton and Chamberlain both inaugurated Washington's Birthday. 
Hampton invited to visit the President. Senator Gordon comes to the 
rescue. Troops withdrawn and South Carolina free. Legislature 
again convenes. Senate. House. Hamilton as an Exhorter. The Two 
"Investigating Committees.'' Speaker W. H. Wallace, Lieut.-Gov. 
W. D. Simpson. Col. A. C. Haskell. Gen. James Conner. Gen. 
Johnson Hagood, Gen M. C. Butler. Gen. M. W. Gary. Con- 
clusion 166 



APPENDIX. 



A partial Digest of the ' Reports of the Joint Investigating Com- 
mittee on Public Frauds, and the Election of John J. Patterson to the 
United States Senate, made to the General Assembly of South Caro- 
lina, at the Regular Session, iSyy-'yS j with occasional comments on 
the Knaves and their Knavery.'' li 



A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 



1874. 

CHAPTER FIRST. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

South Carolina can proudly point to a galaxy of 
historic names, who have illustrated her fame in every 
period of her past history. Through these her voice 
has already been heard in tones which will reach the 
latest posterity. 

In the dark days of the Revolution, this voice could 
be heard in such clarion notes as her Moultries, her 
Sumters, and her Marions could utter, to electrify to 
new life her people, though overrun and all but con- 
quered. 

In the formation of the government, it has been 
heard, in no feiltering accents^ from her Pinckneys, 
her Laurenses, her Rutledges and her Heywards— 
equals among equals — statesmen, who were jealous 
of her liberty so dearly purchased. These only con- 
sented to her association with her sister colonies, 
when they thought this liberty was hedged in by 
every safeguard which human wisdom could devise. 
It has been heard in the halls of State and Federal 
legislation, from the tongues of Calhoun, Hayne, 
2 



12 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

McDuffie, Preston, and a long list of worthies, whose 
names will ever adorn the annals of the past. Giants 
in intellect, who could embellish profound and enno- 
bling statesmanship and patriotism, with unsullied 
integrity, and the purity of the high-toned gentleman. 

But this potent voice has long been hushed, and 
her approaching "centennial year" will find her in 
habiliments of mourning — silent and sad. Most of 
her sisters who began the race with her, and very 
many of those younger ones, who are but of yester- 
day, and who owe so much to her sacrifice of blood 
and treasure, will then be rejoicing in their prosperity, 
and have already invited the whole world to witness 
their progress and their greatness. She, almost 
alone of the " Old Thirteen," will turn her face to the 
wall, and will feel no responsive throb to the rejoic- 
ings over this national jubilee. 

In one short century, she seems to have run her 
whole career of rise, progress, decline and fall. She 
has the same bright sky above her, as in her palmiest 
days; the same broad rivers flowing from her moun- 
tains to the seaboard; the same fertile soil and 
genial climate ; but 

" 'Tis Greece; but living Greece no more," 

yet, unlike ancient Greece, how short-lived has been 
her glory ! 

Her most bitter enemies must admit that her, 
so-called, leaders have maintained a dignified silence 
since her fall. Even those who watch so assiduously 
to catch up and pervert every chance expression of 



INTRODUCTORY. 1 3 

Ex-Presiclcnt Davis, have found nothing to report 
from them. These gentlemen show that it is the part 
of true manhood to endure what is unavoidable, as 
well as to dare ; and that fortitude is, in many 
respects, a higher virtue than bravery. 

This " Voice from South Carolina," comes from 
one of her humble sons, whose earnest desire is to 
cling but the closer to her side in the day of her 
humiliation. He feels irresistibly impelled to publish 
to the world that the grand old Slate, declared to 
be free, sovereign and independent, an hundred years 
ago, is now deposed, gagged, and trampled in the 
dust. Her seat and name has been usurped by a 
brazen-faced strumpet, foisted upon her "high places" 
by the hands of strangers; her proud monuments 
of the past, all begrimed and vandalized; her sacred 
treasury thrown wide open to the insatiable rapacity 
of thieves and robbers ; and her bright escutcheon 
blackened by every crime known to the decalogue. 

All these, too, have been the legitimate fruits of 
deliberate legislation on the part of her sister States, 
in Congress assembled; peopled, like herself, by the 
descendants of that glorious old Anglo-Saxon race, 
v.'hose achievements on this continent have filled the 
world with amazement and admiration. Could our 
common ancestors ever have foreseen this? Can 
posterity ever account for the " madness of the hour," 
in States, having the same lineage, combining to 
drive one of their number from the folds of civiliza- 
tion into the dark despotism of African rule? And 
yet. South Carolina to-day presents the terrible pic- 



14 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

ture of a great American State abandoned to the 
tender mercies of her former slaves, exasperated and 
maddened by the teachings and guidance of foreign 
mercenaries and native desperadoes. 

Her Hving sons, whom she once deh"ghted to honor, 
and whose hearts still throb with undying love and 
devotion, are powerless and voiceless. For them 
there is no arena amid scenes like these, and no tri- 
bunal to which they can appeal. The indications 
now are, that the grand old type of the "Southern 
gentleman" will soon pass from the stage of active 
life to the dark mausoleum of the great Past. Here- 
after he is to be associated with the " Patriarchs," 
the "Areopagites," and the " Conscript-Fathers," who 
have, from age to age, illustrated the higher and 
nobler qualities of our common humanity. With 
him, State-pride was his idolatry, and honor was his 
life. Born to command, he was ever too high above 
the venal place-man and office-seeker, ever to stoop 
to the low arts of the mere politician and demagogue. 
What Webster said of Calhoun, in his noble eulogy 
over that great statesman, might be said of the whole 
class, of whom Mr. Calhoun was the honored expo- 
nent : " Nothing low or selfish ever came near the 
head or heart of Calhoun." 

Those who carped at this t3^pe of character, mainly 
from natural want of appreciation, disguised their 
envy or their fear under the cant phrases of " Southern 
chivalry," ** Slaveocracy," &c. But to this class is 
mainly due all the statesmanship and dignity which 
have adorned our government. Since these have been 



INTRODUCTORY. 1 5 

excluded from the councils of the nation, concfres- 
sional legislation has become little more than the 
registering of party edicts. Railroad rings, Credit 
Mobil ier rings, back-pay grabs, &c., had already nau- 
seated the public, when the recent investigatio,ns bid 
fair to bring bribery, fraud and corruption to the very 
threshold of the Chief Executive of the Republic. 
In the days of the sway of " Southern chivalry," 
such mortifying and disgusting exhibitions in our 
high places would have been moral impossibilities. 

And what have these reconstructionists given us 
in the place of a civilization so ruthlessly destroyed? 
What type of citizen, in the once proud old common- 
wealth of South Carolina, can now look for place or 
preferment ? The phrase used to be, to ''aspire" to 
posts of profit and trust, but in this complete revolu- 
tion, the aspirant must learn to stoop to the very lowest 
arts of the demagogue. He must so debase himself 
in political pollution that he can never again look his 
former associates in the face, or claim the smallest 
remnant of self respect. "Dirt eating," in regular 
and constantly increasing rations, is the only diet to 
change his nature, and fit him to become a loyal cit- 
izen of this mongrel Dahomey. 

And what hope is there for the rising generation, 
in a civilization like this ? The land-marks of the 
fathers all obliterated, and the teachings of history, as 
well as of the fireside, all reversed. What can all 
these avail, when he sees vice rolling in wealth, and 
virtue covered with rags ; the liar and thief clothed 
in the regalia of the highest offices, and the true and 



l6 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

patriotic happy if only they can escape the dungeon ; 
and he who can stoop the lowest in infamy, reaping 
the largest pecuniary rewards, while the pure and the 
noble are worn down by daily toil for their daily 
bread. 

There is a terrible weight of responsibility some- 
where for this horrible state of things in a Christian 
land and in the full light of the civilization of the 
nineteenth century. The true-born son of the soil 
feels that it is not on him. In the great national con- 
flict, of which this was the direful sequel, he was 
only carrying out the teachings of his Revolutionary 
sires, and the promptings of his own manhood. To 
avert these very calamities he has sacrificed all, save 
his honor, and voiceless and powerless, he can only 
endure. 

The " bills of mortality " tell a sad tale of many of 
these who had passed the meridian of their powers ; 
reminding us, mournfully, of what is so often sung 
thoughtlessly : 

" For Freedom now so seldom wakes, 
The only throb she gives, 
Is when some heart indignant breaks, 
To tell that still she lives " 

In all the grief and mourning of our stricken State 
over her ** Lost Cause," there are found no tears of 
penitence. She still proudly points to the records of 
i860; and it is her chief solace that she has attempt- 
ed all in her power to avert these very calamities, 
which she then believed to be inevitable. 

It is not the design of this little book to undertake 



INTRODUCTORY. 1/ 

a vindication of the right of secession. This has 
already been done by far abler pens, and the verdict 
of impartial history may calmly be awaited on that 
point. The writer, however, must be pardoned for 
giving his testimony against the charge that the 
act of secession in South Carolina was the work of 
political leaders. On the contrary, it was one of the 
grandest spectacles of the unanimous up-rising of a 
whole people, the world has ever seen. The " leaders" 
hesitated at the bold step ; the people pushed them 
aside and came squarely up to the issue. The high 
and the low, the rich and the poor, the male and the 
female, the clergy and the laity, the brave and the 
timid, all, all were of one accord in the " Rebellion" 
of i860. The tories in 1776 who still adhered to the 
British crown, were as one hundred to one, when 
compared to the " Union men" in i860, in point of 
numbers ; and in character and standing, were vastly 
superior. 

When the passions of men shall have had time to 
cool down, and the deadly hate so long cherished 
shall have died out with the generation who have 
fomented it, the course of South Carolina, in what is 
called her secession mania, will not appear so reckless 
and mad as our present (Northern) school histories 
represent it. The moral mania on the other side will 
then come more prominently forward, and even 
their posterity will wonder at the madness that ruled 
the hour. Slavery was the occasion of all this mania 
on both sides, and posterity will know \\\q facts of the 
case, without being distempered by morbid sentiment. 



1 8 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

A calm review of these facts will show, that as long 
as slavery and the slave-trade continued to be sources 
of profit, the conscience of the majority slept quietly 
enough over their great enormities. After a more full 
development of their appropriate industries, it was 
found that the slave was an incubus, and he was quietly 
shipped and sold where his services were regarded as 
still indispensable. Being thus happily relieved of 
his presence, and reimbursed for his pecuniary value, 
they abolished the institution in their own States ; and 
these same consciences then became most painfully 
sensitive to the sins of their neighbors, on whom they 
had palmed their whole load of fancied guilt. It will 
not iJicii be forgotten, that, at the time of the adop- 
tion of the constitution, all\\\^ States were slave-hold- 
ing, with a single exception; that slavery was fully 
recognized and gauranteed in the fundamental law of 
the land, and that all efforts at its abolition were really 
acts of disloyalty to the government. Yet an anti- 
slavery sentiment did spring up, at first confined to 
those despicable and troublesome spirits to be found 
in every country, who attempt to draw off public atten- 
tion from their own misdeeds by a great outcry against 
the faults of others for which they are in no sense res- 
ponsible. But this little cloud, at first no bigger than 
a man's hand, afterwards darkened and blackened the 
whole political sky. A generation arose who had im- 
bibed with their mother's milk this moral prejudice, 
and had been incessantly taught from their earliest 
infancy, in the home-circle, in the school, in the pub- 
lic prints, in every harangue before the people, and 



INTRODUCTORY. 1 9 

even in the Sanctuary of God, to regard slavery as the 
sum of all iniquities, and a blot upon the body politic, 
which it was their mission to remove. 

Is it to be wondered at that a generation thus 
indoctrinated should early begin a crusade against 
this, the greatest of national sins ? And when they 
themselves became the actors upon the public arena, 
what limit could be fixed to their moral mania ? 
Every political question became subordinate to this, 
and no aspirant for popular favor could hope for suc- 
cess without adopting as his ov/n the watchword — 
cartJiago est delciida. This tornado of fanaticism 
overspread whole States, and soon controlled the pub- 
lic sentiment of the dominant section of the Union. 
Already was a President elected by a strictly sectional 
vote, and there was every probability that a majority 
in Congress would soon be secured, which, by its 
omnipotence in controlling every other department 
of governnient, would leave no ground for hope. 

A mighty revolution was thus effected, and the 
government of the United States, based on a written 
constitution, was to be changed into a huge party 
engine, to carry out hostile sectional policies. The 
constitution had already become a dead letter, and 
the will of the majority was to become the supreme 
law of the land. Congress, so jealously checked by 
the fathers, through the co-ordinate branches of the 
executive and judiciary, was henceforth to exercise 
the omnipotence claimed by the Parliament of Great 
Britain. 

This was not the union for which South Carolina 



20 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

had made such sacrifices, neither was this the govern- 
ment for the maintenance of which she had plighted 
her faith and her sacred honor. She had unanimously- 
entered into a solemn league and covenant with 
homogeneous States and allies, in solemn convention 
assembled ; again, in solemn convention assembled, 
she as unanimously withdrew from this union, when 
it was revolutionized into a consolidated government, 
controlled by a hostile party. And yet this solemn 
and formal expression of the sovereign will of the 
whole people of a State, has been branded as a ** Rebel- 
lion" ; and the secession of ten States from a revolu- 
tionized Union, has been stigmatized as an " Insurrec- 
tion !" 

Twice before, since the formation* of the govern- 
ment, had the State gone into convention from her 
jealousy of oppression and zeal for States' Rights ; 
but on each of these occasions her people were nearly 
equally divided. This was not owing to any differ- 
ence of opinion as to the wrongs complained of, but 
on the question whether the remedy would be best 
found within or without the Union. In i860, those 
who hoped for any redress within the Union were 
tb.e merest handful, held back more from pride of 
opinion than from any real love to the government 
as it then was. 

As to the convention itself, take the following 
sketch of it, drawn by a master pen. The Rev. Dr. 
Thornvvell stood too high in public estimation ever 
to stoop to flattery; and was too great a devotee to 
truth ever to exaggerate in the smallest particular. 



INTRODUCTORY. 21 



In an article written for the " Southern Presbyterian 
Review^' of i860, and headed, " The State of the 
Country," he said : 

" That there was a cause, and an adequate cause, 
might be presumed from the character of the conven- 
tion which passed the Ordinance of Secession, and 
the perfect unanimity with which it was done. The 
convention was not a collection of politicians and 
demagogues. It was not a conclave of defeated 
place-hunters, w^ho sought to avenge their disappoint- 
ment by the ruin of their country. It was a body of 
grave, sober and venerable men, selected from every 
pursuit in life, and distinguished, most of them, in 
their respective spheres, by every quality which can 
command confidence and respect. It embraced the 
wisdom, moderation and integrity of the bench ; the 
learning and prudence of the bar; and the eloquence 
and learning of the pulpit. It contained retired 
planters, scholars and gentlemen, who stood aloof 
from the turmoil and ambition of public life, and 
were devotincT an elegrant leisure to the culture of 
their minds, and to quiet and unobtrusive schemes of 
Christian philanthro[)y. There were men in that 
convention utterly incapable of low and selfish 
schemes, who, in the calm serenity of their judg- 
ments, were as unmoved by the waves of popular 
passion and excitement, as the everlasting granite by 
the billows that roll against it. There were men 
there who would listen to no voice but the voice of 
reason ; and would bow to no authority but what 
they believed to be the authority of God. There 



22 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

were men there who would not be controlled by 
' uncertain opinion,' nor be betrayed into * sudden 
counsels;' men who would act from nothing, in the 
noble language of Milton, * but from mature wisdom, 
deliberate virtue, and the dear affection of the public 
good.' That convention, in the character of its mem- 
bers, deserves every syllable of the glowing panegyric 
which Milton pronounced upon the immortal Parlia- 
ment of Great Britain which taught the nations of 
the earth that resistance to tyrants was obedience to 
God. Were it not invidious, we might single out 
names, which, wherever they are known, are re- 
garded as synonymous with purity, probity, magna- 
nimity and honor. It was a noble body, and all their 
proceedings were in harmony with their high charac- 
ter. In the midst of intense agitation and excitement, 
they were calm, cool, collected and self-possessed. 
They deliberated without passion, and concluded 
without rashness. They sat with closed doors, that 
the tumult of the population might not invade the 
sobriety of their minds. If a stranger could have 
passed from the stirring scenes with which the streets 
of Charleston were alive, into the calm and quiet 
sanctuary of this venerable council, he would have 
been impressed with the awe and veneration which 
subdued the rude Gaul, when he first beheld, in sena- 
torial dignity, the Conscript-Fathers of Rome. That 
in such a body there was not a single vote against 
the Ordinance of Secession; that there was not only 
no dissent, but the assent was cordial and thorough- 
going, is a strong presumption that the measure was 



INTRODUCTORY. 23 

justified by the clearest and sternest necessities of 
justice and of right. That such an assembly should 
have inaugurated a radical revolution in all the exter- 
nal relations of the State, in the face of acknowledged 
dangers, and at the risk of enormous sacrifices, and 
should have done it gravely, soberly, dispassionately, 
deliberately, and yet have done it without cause, 
transcends all the measures of probability,. Whatever 
else may be said of it, it certainly must be admitted 
that this solemn act of South Carolina was well con- 
sidered.'' 



i874. 
CHAPTER SECOND. 

AFTER THE WAR. 

It is impossible to conceive of a more gloomy and 
cheerless welcome than that which awaited the Con- 
federate soldier returning to his home in South Caro- 
lina. If it was in the broad track of Sherman across 
the State, two chimneys alone, in most cases, would 
mark the place of his once happy dwelling ; or, if his 
house was spared, his famished family could only 
welcome him to a shelter, a forlorn picture of desola- 
tion. If his house was gone, the returned soldier 
would have to travel many a weary mile in 
search of his loved ones, who had been compelled to 
seek for food and shelter elsewhere. There was no 
hope of hospitality in the immediate vicinity, where 
every morsel was prized far more than gold had been 
in former years. 

And when his house was spared, he would have to 
listen to harrowing accounts of officers and privates 
of the invading army indulging themselves in such 
acts of cruelty and barbarism as seemed to belong to 
another age, and another country. The " standing 
order," in the whole march across the State, was to 
pillage and burn to the ground every abandoned 
dwelling ; but, if occupied, then to pillage, but not 
to burn. 



AFTER THE WAR. 2$ 

ExiLiio discc ojnnes. The indignant wife would have 
to tell of the rude entering of rough and boisterous 
squads. Some would go to the out-buildings to learn 
from the servants the circumstances of the family — 
the first question always being as to the probability of 
any hid treasure. If they found cause to suspect that 
money had actually been secreted, how the soldier's 
heart would fire at the dastardly means resorted to 
to extort confession. Pistols ready cocked were 
held to the head of the defenceless wife, or the aged 
father would be taken to some convenient place, what- 
ever its character, and hung by the neck, until life 
was nearly extinct. If these failed, then he would be 
whipped until, either their purpose was gained, or the 
victim deprived of consciousness. In the meantime, 
other parties would be equally busy. The smoke- 
house would soon be broken open, and the family 
carriage, with horses attached, stood ready for the un- 
usual freight. Hams, sides of bacon, corn, flour, all the 
supplies so carefully guarded, and economically used, 
would be piled in the carriage, till the load would 
reach the roof, then horses and carriage, with supplies, 
would disappear, the horses going at a furious rate. 
While some would be busy killing the cattle and poul- 
try of every kind, another party would swagger into 
the dwelling and ransack it from cellar to garret. 
After breaking into every place that had a lock, and 
throwing out of the windows whatever their friends 
below could put to any possible use, they would call 
the servants in, to help themselves to whatever might 
strike their fancies. Then returning to the room where 



26 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

they had left the whole family, of wife, daughters and 
children, cowering in one corner, they would utter 
the coarsest abuse of husband and brothers, and gloat 
over their terror and their tears. Not satisfied yet, 
with this, their manly revenge, they would lead in 
the servant girls, all dressed in the finest they could 
find in their young mistress's wardrobes, and dance 
with them over carpets, soon to be ripped into suita- 
ble breadths for saddle-cloths. The piano, which fur- 
nished the jingle for the dance, would afterwards be 
disjointed by their bayonets, and the fragments 
thrown out of the window. On leaving the house, if 
they found anything that could be of any possible use 
to the family, they would most wantonly destroy it — 
sometimes emptying barrels of sorghum into the 
watering troughs, and, ripping open feather-beds and 
pillows, discharge their contents into this, and with 
their bayonets stir the whole into a thorough mixture. 
If any domestic animal was left, it was shot down, 
and rendered unfit for food. 

It required many hours for this immense army to 
march by, but when the last squad of bummers de- 
parted there would be absolutely nothing left which 
could contribute to food or any other family comfort. 
The servants, of course, were all enticed to follow the 
army, and, for days, such families would subsist on 
selected parts of the animals so wantonly killed and 
cut to pieces, and on corn scattered on the ground 
where the cavalry horses had been last fed — there 
were no hogs left now, to dispute possession of such 
relics. 



AFTER THE WAR. 



27 



Such was the tale of desolation for the returned 
soldier, if his home had been anywhere in that wide 
belt so thoroughly ploughed by Sherman, from the 
Georgia line, near Savannah, to the North Carolina 
line. 

If his home had been in Columbia, his heart would 
be wrung by the recital of those terrible and horrible 
scenes of that stormy February night, of which the 
world has already heard so much. A whole city 
burned to the ground, including the State House and 
other public buildings, and all in half a night, was 
no very wonderful feat for so large a body of incen- 
diaries. This treat had been promised his army, by 
Sherman, all through his weary march through 
Georgia, and his men enjoyed it, as only such an 
army could be expected to do. None but those who 
witnessed their bacchanalian orgies can fully appre- 
ciate them, and form a just conception how nearly 
those clothed in human forms can personate devils- 
incarnate. 

If he had once lived in ease and luxuiy in those 
favored sea islands, or if his home had o-nce been m 
the midst of the culture, wealth and refinement of 
Beaufort and its vicinity, a heart-sickening account 
of ruin and poverty awaited him. He would hear 
how the fall of Port Royal, early in the war, left them 
exposed to the inroads of enemies, just a little less 
barbarous than Sherman's bummers. These did not 
use the torch as their favorite weapon, but were very 
little behind them \\\ the cowardly revenge of insult- 
ing the vanquished. They were told to stay at home 



■ZS A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

but on condition of full equality with their former 
slaves. In this, too, all possible collision must be 
avoided, as they were bound to favor the "wards of 
the nation." Of course, in this early stage of the 
war, with the whole State before them, and yet con- 
fident of final success, these natives would submit to 
no such humiliating conditions, and nearly all that 
section of country was abandoned to negroes and 
cam.p-foUowers. Their exodus was a sad one, and 
the consequences were deplorable and lasting. Those 
who could afford it, chartered steamers and removed 
their families and furniture to Charleston for refuge. 
Others, and much the greater part, left their all 
behind them, and escaped with their families alone. 
Those who had removed to Charleston fared no better. 
The great fire which followed soon after, and swept 
diagonally across the city, from the Cooper to the 
Ashley, and over the quarter where they had just 
domiciled, consumed in one night the accumulations 
of long years of labor and economy. The sufferings 
of these people were more deplorable than those of 
any other section of the State. Their estates thus 
abandoned were seized by their negro slaves and by 
strangers, and in most cases have passed entirely 
from their possession. What from dividing them 
out by military order, and from selling for United 
States taxes, the titles even have passed into other 
hands, and they are left destitute. Impoverished and 
ruined in fortune, they even now can be found scat- 
tered over the State, in circumstances of great desti- 
tution. 



AFTER THE WAR. 



29 



And what was their crime? Simply their living in 
the neighborhood of the first post that fell into the 
hands of the enemy in open war. Was this civilized 
warfare, to seize and appropriate to government 
officials whole areas of the territory, and all the pri- 
vate property, merely because the military post near 
them had fallen ? We will have to look far back into 
the annals of the past to find any precedent for this 
course, and only succeed when on the confines of the 
dark ages. 

When the returned soldier had once seen his 
premises, fenceless, and grown up in weeds, the 
doors and blinds of his house all gone, used up 
for fire-wood, the portraits of his ancestors taking the 
places of fire-screens, and even their tombstones, in 
Beaufort, applied to other and meaner purposes, his 
heart would sink too low to rise again to any hope of 
restoring the past. But when he would find the- 
whole vicinity given up to a motley gang, and misce- 
genation and open concubinage the prevailing habits 
of the new settlers, his impulse was to put his family 
and all he held dear, as far as possible from this 
moral pestilence. It could be his home no longer! 

And poor old Charleston, the once proud metropo- 
lis of the State, the seat of elegance and refinement,, 
and of a hospitality so world-wide in its fame ! Like 
all her sons, the returned soldier had cherished a 
filial affection for his native city, unknown to a 
migratory people. When he had gone forth as a 
hopeful volunteer, and all through the hardships,, 
fightings and privations of a long war, the most 



30 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

cheering picture before liim was, old Charleston 
restored to her commercial importance. Though he 
knew that the course of events before the war had 
caused her to subside into a mere dependency on her 
northern rivals, still he knew that it had not always 
been so. There had been a time when she held 
proud rank with these same rivals, and her commerce, 
too, had whitened foreign seas. He knew that about 
the time of tb.e Revolution she had had six large 
ship-yards in active operation; and as early as 
between 1740 and 1779, ^^^^ had built twenty-five 
square-rigged vessels, besides very many coasters for 
the West India trade and that of the Atlantic coast. 
Under new and brighter auspices, why might not 
prosperity not only be restored to her, but be greatly 
enhanced? The Southern Confederacy once estab- 
lished, why might not this ancient city become the 
New York of the New Republic? These had been 
his day-dreams for four long years, but what was his 
awaking? 

Her wharves either torn up, or rotted down from 
disuse, her princely mansions, which had been venera- 
ted for generations, all ragged from bursting shells, 
and shattered in the unprecedented bombardment of 
those long and weary years, her streets covered with 
coatings of grass, and her public squares so grown 
up in weeds that the wild beasts from the country 
found ample shelter there through the demolished 
enclosures. 

But grand even in ruins, proudly had she defied 
all the enemy's engines of destruction for more than 



AFTER THE WAR. 



31 



two long years, and only fell when her citizen soldiers 
marched out to defend more vital points. It was some 
days before the evacuation was even known to the 
enemy, and then he marched in, only to triumph over 
women and children, in their battered dwellings and 
blackened walls. But here, too, they assumed all 
their peculiar ''rights of the conquerors," and we 
have the same sickening tales of private property 
seized for government use, or no known use at all, 
and of private rights insulted and outraged by the 
elevation of the slave to the position of master. 

Just here, the writer would pause to notice some 
most ungenerous flings against the energy and enter- 
prise of this stricken city, graced by those modern 
cant phrases of " Bourbonism," ** old fogyism/' "fos- 
silized," &c., and all this accompanied by glowing 
contrasts, pictured in the cases of Chicago and 
Boston. That while these two great cities had built 
up their waste places, as if by magic, the traces of 
the fire which occurred in Charleston more than tliir- 
teen years ago are still manifest in the vacant lots 
and crumbling walls which mark its progress. 

These carpers should remember that the business 
of Charleston was not only paralyzed by the war, but 
was "dead, twice dead, plucked up by the roots !" 
Savannah and some of her other Southern nei$jhbors 
were revived by the return of some of their strongest 
firms, with increased capitals, who had removed to 
places of safety at the beginning of hostilities ; but 
there was no such recuperation for this old city. 
Her merchants and business men stood in their own 



32 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

lot through the whole strife, and were all prostra- 
ted together. They, therefore, had to begin, as the 
phrase is, from the stump. Even in these circum- 
stances, the enterprise and grit of her citizens would 
soon have restored a measure of prosperity, if they 
could have had a fair field for their development. 
But, just then, she was turned over to African rule, 
both State and municipal ; and what people could 
have flourished under such insatiate and incessant 
draining? Sampson, shorn of his locks, was not more 
completely in the- hands o^ /lis Philistines. 

But to come back to our returned soldier. Even 
in the most favored sections of the State, scenes of 
desolation and decay awaited him. Four long years 
of rigid blockade from without, and of extortion and 
rapacity from heartless " speculators " from within, 
had blackened all the picture his imagination had 
painted of home, and, worst of all, his rights of citizen- 
ship were all gone. The old State was peopled by 
negroes and " paroled prisoners of war," without 
even the forms of civilized government. Her court- 
houses were all closed, her Governor was himself a 
prisoner in the Dry Tortugas, and even municipal 
government of incorporated towns was all suspended. 
It afforded a striking evidence of the law-abiding 
character of her citizens, that, in this complete inter- 
regnum of all constituted authority, which continued 
for so many months, there should be so ^q\v infrac- 
tions of the public peace; and that all things should 
go on as orderly and peacefully as they did. 

The negroes had not yet been tampered with, and 



AFTER THE WAR. -^^ 

were as obedient and faithful as they had been durin- 
the war. The whole history of the State, durinir this 
short period, was a practical illustration of the power 
of public opinion in maintaining order, and in pre- 
serving the peace of the community. Sometim^es a 
small garrison of colored troops would be marched 
to some point in the interior, and then a series of 
petty annoyances would begin and expand. The little 
"Lieutenant commanding" would be judge, jury 
and sheriff, in his little " Military Court," and fines 
were almost exclusively his penalties. How near 
these fines ever got to the United States treasury has 
never been ascertained, and probably never will be. 
All^ the cases, it may be safely said, were of colored 
plaintiffs against white defendants, on charges of 
'' assault and battery." The negroes would be put up 
to all manner of insolence by their brethren in uni- 
form and their friends, and when a blow, or other 
punishment, would thus be provoked, the culprit 
would soon be seized by an armed squad, and taken 
to headquarters (Lieutenant commanding), whether 
by day or by night, and irrespective of distance or 
state of health. This petty tyranny was excessively 
annoying, particularly as these fines, varying fi'om 
twenty to one hundred dollars, had to be promptly 
met, when there was no money in the country. 
Heir-looms and old family plate had in most in- 
stances to be sacrificed, and the " Court," too often, 
became the purchaser. 

And following hard upon these intolerable annoy^ 
ances, came the " Freedman's Bureau," emer^incr from 



34 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

its embryo state on the Sea Islands, and spreading 
its filthy meshes all over the State. These were, at 
first, mere swindling machines in the hands of sharp- 
ers. Afterwards party contrivances were superadded 
for the political bondage of the black man, far more 
galling than those world-abused " chains of slavery." 
These man-traps furnished appropriate schooling for 
that rapacious crew who afterwards revelled in the 
treasury of the State. Here Scott and his congenial 
colleagues received that impervious coating over 
everything like conscience, which fitted him and them 
for the open robbing of public funds. 

By way of gossiping postscript to this chapter, it 
may be remarked that these colored garrisons, so pro- 
fusely scattered over the State, rejoiced in the high- 
sounding titles of " 57th," '' 59th," &c., •* Massachu- 
setts Regiments," and some explanation seems neces- 
sary for the fact that Massachusetts Regiments were 
so exclusively selected to march over South Carolina 
soil, after the surrender. 

In the malarial resfions near Port Roval, includincr 
most of the Sea Islands, the slaves employed in the 
culture of rice and cotton constituted the very lowest 
type of the African race in the State. They were for 
the most part the immediate descendants of the latest 
importations of native Africans brought to our shores, 
in New England vessels, up to 1808 — the limit fixed 
in the constitution to the " slave trade." These were 
generally worked in large gangs, having but little 
intercourse with the whites. For example. Governor 
Aiken owned more than one thousand of them, on 



AFTER THE WAR. 



35 



his Island of Jehossee, and with the exception of his 
overseer, his physician, and the methodist preacher, 
they seldom saw a white man from one Christmas to 
another. 

Now, these were the fields from which Massa- 
chusetts swelled the numbers of her regiments, with 
the rank and file, who could not even speak her ver- 
nacular. The officers of these regiments may have 
belonged, and probably did belong, to the " cod fish 
aristocracy," but all the privates were the genuine 
Cudjoes and Cuffees of this class — familiarly known 
as " Gullah negroes." 

Their language was an unintelligible jargon to 
these officers, and nothing short of the " bounty- 
cash " could have induced them to undertake the drill- 
ing of these thick-skulled, semi-savage soldiers. 

These garrison commands afforded appropriate 
training for the richer spoils of the Freedman's Bureau, 
into which these self-sacrificing patriots so quickly 
retired, on the cessation of hostilities ; and to which 
they so tenaciously clung, as long as there was a 
dollar of congressional appropriation in their treasu- 
ries. 



1874- 
CHAPTER THIRD. 

RECONSTRUCTION. 

The first ray of hope that dawned on the dark pic- 
ture given in the last chapter, was the announcement 
of President Johnson's ** Policy " of restoring the Con- 
federate States to the Union, on their complying with 
certain conditions precedent. In pursuance of this 
policy, the Hon. B. F. Perry, a thorough Union man, 
all before and through the war, but highly respected, 
and honored by his fellow-citizens, for his high char- 
acter, unswerving integrity, and his honesty of pur- 
pose, was appointed " Provisional Governor '' by the 
President. And now, in 1865, for the first time, the 
forms of Government were, once more, assumed. 

A convention of the people was called to alter and 
amend the constitution. Just then began that system 
of " dirt eating," whereby her own citizens have 
been made to bring degradation on the State. In 
complying with the "conditions'" emanating from 
Washington, many of the old land-marks of the past, 
hallowed by the most sacred associations, were re- 
moved by our own people. Those who have felt the 
power of W. H. Seward, still Secretary of State, at 
Washington, could easily discern "the hand of Joab" 
in these requirements, though they came ostensibly 



RECONSTRUCTION. 



37 



from the President. At last, the State, in this funda- 
mental law, was made to abolish slav^ery — or, rather, 
to recogni.ze abolition, and to declare that the institu- 
tion should never again exist within her borders. 

Under this constitution, the courts were re- opened. 
a Legislature elected, as also members of Congress and 
U. S. Senators. All the conditions were fully com- 
plied with, and the State fully equipped for a new de- 
parture. Her citizens once more began to breathe 
freely, and hopes for the future began, at last, to 
loom up before them. 

Unfortunately, all this was soon clouded in impene- 
trable darkness; and, after* a bitter experience of ten 
long years, no light has yet dawned upon us. In 
December, 1865, Congress convened in regular ses- 
sion, and, in a very short time, President Johnson's 
policy was wholly ignored by them, and all his meas- 
ures and plans were upset by the famous " Recon- 
struction Acts," by which the State was promptly 
remanded to her previous condition of *' conquered 
territory." As all the measures already adopted were 
acceptable to the majority, the forms of government 
were not absolutely abolished — nor was there any 
necessity for this. Under the military government, 
so promptly introduced, the Commanding General 
was, in fact, t\ie Governor; the order> from head- 
quarters were, in effect, the legislature ; the military 
tribunals were, really, the judiciary; and the Freed- 
man's Bureau was a very acceptable substitute for all 
municipal authority in cities and towns. 

To give some plausible pretext for this over-riding 



38 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

of all the forms of civil government, certain measures 
were proposed to the legislature for adoption, where- 
by odium, disfranchisement and public disg-race were 
to be heaped upon her former leaders, both in the 
cabinet and in the field. Of course, South Carolina 
rejected these almost unanimously, failing by a sin- 
gle vote of entire unanimity — and, immediately, a 
howl of disloyalty was raised against her, from one 
part of the country to the other. Her sons could not 
vote for such measures, consistently with their man- 
hood, nor could they have retained any sense of self- 
respect, had they acquiesced. Their course, in thus 
resisting these dishonorable and dishonoring requisi- 
tions, was anticipated by their political oppressors, 
and exactly answered their purposes. 

Still, these citizens, not yet indoctrinated into the 
omnipotence of the American Congress, were buoyed 
up by the delusive hope that President Johnson's 
policy would yet prevail. They were induced to be- 
lieve that these Reconstruction Acts were unconsti- 
tutional, and that the executive and judiciary 
departments of government would yet check the 
madness of Congress, under the " old flag " which 
they had resumed. But the President was without a 
party, and the salaries and tenure of office of the 
Supreme Court depended upon the votes of Congress. 
Not yet believing all this, they really pursuaded 
themselves that this second " Congressional Recon- 
struction " would prove a sham. When, therefore, 
anotJicr convention of the State was called under 
these Acts, to make another Constitution, it was 



RECONSTRUCTION. ^g 

regarded merely as a farce by our wisest and gravest 
men. None of the bona fide citizens of the State took 
any part whatever in the elections for delegates to 
this convention, and the scenes enacted at the polls 
by the sable voters, were, everywhere, looked upon 
as exhibitions for mirth and laughter. But the ^' farce " 
went on, however, in strict conformity to these un- 
precedented acts ; and a convention was elected, of 
every hue, and from every clime; from the glossy 
blackness of the native African, to the pale-faced 
Sabbath-school teacher from Massachusetts— all fa- 
miliarly known as the " Ring-streaked and slriped," 
in the slang language of the day. 

It was a fatal mistake in thus unanimously holding 
back in these, the first elections held under Recon- 
struction. The pestiferous body of '' carpet-baggers " 
were thus permitted to come boldly to the front, and 
occupy an open, undisputed field. They thus' had 
ample room and verge enough for introducing all 
their low and despicable, but eminently successful, ap- 
pliances of party machinery. The Freedman's Bu- 
reau had prepared the way for them, in their separate 
church organizations and separate schools, a!' of 
which were soon diverted into the channels of politics. 
But their most powerful engine was the "Union- 
League," which bound the unhappy voter hand and 
foot. By its secret rules he was not only to vote with 
unquestioning obedience to party-dictation, but any 
effort at independent action on his part would bring 
down upon him the wrath and condign punishment o{ 
his own race. Many rites were introduced which ap- 



40 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

pealed directly to his superstitious fears ; and the 
use of the ballot, so new to him, beame inextricably 
entangled with his religion. He was not only taught 
that it was liis truest policy to vote against his former 
master on every occasion, but a solemn obligation to 
God, who had emancipated him — always remember- 
ing that God had used the Radical party as his chosen 
instruments for this great end. 

This is nozv the fanatical faith of the whole race, 
and renders them deaf to all appeals and arguments. 
He was not safe from the vengeance of his own race 
if he continued outside the League, and once in, his 
identity was lost, and he became a mere pawn on the 
political chess-board, to be moved by a higher intel- 
ligence. This accounts for the apparent anomaly 
that, when he gets into straits or troubles, or needs 
advice about his business, he will come to his former 
owner with all the humility and confidence of the 
olden time ; he will work for him, and with him, as 
cheerfully, if not as faithfully, for wages, as he ever 
did under the former system ; but as soon as the sub- 
ject of politics is broached, he becomes as silent and 
/ solemn as a tombstone. That'xs a subject with which 
/^'^ Old Massa " has iiotJiiug to do; it is sacred between 
him and his God — but, thiough the Radical party. 

Matters might have been very different, had the 
whites realized the situation from the first, and while 
they had the influence over this class, founded on the 
intercourse, dependence and confidence of long years 
in the past, they might then have taught their negro 
fellow-citizens to look upon these vile carpet-baggers 



RECONSTRUCTION. a^ 

as they had been trained to regard the intermeddh'ng 
aboht.onists of former years— as those seeking to sub- 
vert all things, and bringing desolation and ruin in 
their train. 

Immediately after the war, there was no animosity 
between the races. The negroes had behaved ad- 
mirably during those four long years-when almost 
all domestic interests had been left mainly to their 
care and management— and the whites felt o-rate- 
ful to them. The negro was. in no way, responsible 
for his emancipation, nor was that generation of 
whites responsible for his past servitude. Both par- 
ties had been born under the institution of slavery 
and there were no heart-burnings nor feelings of re- 
venge, until these were sown in their hearts by 
designing scoundrels. If these carpet-baggers had 
been starved out, as they easily might have been, and 
the two races left to themselves, there would have 
been a continuance of that harmony which had re- 
sulted from mutual dependence and mutual good 
will. 

But supposing the policy of " fighting the devil with 
fire" had been thus early adopted, and everv one of 
these votes had been bought up, as might easily have 
been done. We m?zu see that, in the last decade, the 
State would have saved immensely in money— to say 
nothing of the prevention of incalculable rascality- 
even if these votes had been paid, each, twice his 
assessed value, as recorded in the mite bcllum tax- 
books. 

To outsiders, it may seem marvellous that so few 



42 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

of these unprincipled carpet-baggers — adventurers, 
" who left their country for their country's good " — 
should so soon and so long lord it over a people who 
had, but recently, filled the world with admiration for 
their unparalleled military record. The explanation 
simply is, these miscreants were backed by the whole 
army and navy of the United States, and these re- 
puted "Rebels" had sworn allegiance to the govern- 
ment, and obedience to all its laws, and constituted 
authorities. 

The government was in the hands of the war party, 
who were determined to retain their prodigious power, 
by every means to which they could resort. These 
Confederate States had been the backbone of the 
^ Democratic party, and this was to be broken, at any 
^ and every sacrifice. They could be politically revo- 
lutionized by creating a new body of voters, and con- 
solidating them into //^r/r party ranks. They did not 
have the constitutional two-thirds majority to effect 
this fundamental change in the supreme law of the 
land, therefore these States must be forced to vote for 
their own degradation. This was done by the oppro- 
brious measures of disfranchising large classes of the 
whites — enfranchising the whole body of the blacks — 
and making the adoption of their constitutional 
amendments a condition precedent -to their readmis- 
sion into the Union. The slave thus elevated to 
political equality with his former owner, must be edu- 
cated and trained for the purposes of the party. 
/ There has always been a dread of the influence of 
L^the former master, and this must be overcome by any 



RECONSTRUCTION. 43 

and every means. Hence, these thick-skinned and 
heartless, but hungry and zealous partizans, known as 
carpet-baggers, were the very instruments they needed 
for this cruel work of sowing suspicion, enmity, and 
even deadly hate, between the two races. Assured 
of the protection and unstinted aid from Washington, 
there was no limit to their unblushing audacity and 
unscrupulous rapacity. In addition to unlimited 
military protection, the majority in Congress stood 
ready to give the forms of law to whatever they re- 
quired for the good of the party. Is it wonderful 
that they can so securely and so completely triumph 
over the natives, bound by obligations the most sa- 
cred to passive acquiescence, and then, under the ban 
of " paroled rebels and traitors ? " 

There was danger that this cruel policy would 
alienate the masses at home ; and the gain of political 
strength at the South, be more than counterbalanced 
by the defection and disgust of friends at the North. 
Hence, the necessity, from time to time, to " fire the 
Northern heart," and rekindle the hate generated by 
four years of bloody strife. This was effected by 
encouraging the carpet-baggers to fresh provoca- 
tions, more aggravating than human nature could 
bear, and then to magnify any effort at resistance, or 
any natural expression of indignation into " Southern-<r = 
outrages," " Southern disloyalty," to be heralded 
from one end of the Union to the other. The South- 
ern newspapers had but a limited and local circula- 
tion, and the press was arrayed against them, with 
slim opportunities for either explanation or correction. 



44 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

South Carolina was particularly odious as the 
leader in Secession. Whatever justification or ap- 
peal came from her borders, fell on ears most un- 
sympathizing, and the stereotyped reply, " served her 
right!" was the only satisfaction vouchsafed. Her 
slaves were in a vast majority, more than three to 
two in the aggregate, and in some sections of her 
low country, as many as ten to one. The Congres- 
sional policy of reconstruction, therefore, has not 
only revolutionized her government and closed her 
record as one of the " old thirteen," but has changed 
her caste among the peoples of the earth, as far as 
legislation can do so. A native from the wilds of 
Africa could, at that time, have reached higher sta- 
tions, and enjoyed greater privileges and immunities, 
than any of her native-born sons of the great Anglo- 
Saxon family. 

It was in circumstances such as these, that this 
hybrid Constitutional Convention selected R. K. Scott 
as their standard-bearer. 

Several of our thinking men, more far-seeing than 
others, began to realize that this abnormal state of 
things might become permanent, and, by their advice, 
a counter organization was attempted in this the first 
election of State officers, under the new Constitution, 
in 1868. Public meetings were held in various parts 
of the State, and, at first, these were largely attended 
by the colored voters. Notably, in Columbia, Gen^ 
Wade Hampton, efficiently aided by Col. J. P. 
Thomas, was earnest in his addresses and appeals. 
He had been the first leading citizen to urge that the 



RECONSTRUCTION. 45 

ballot should be given to the freedmen, and was 
buoyed by the hoped that they could be taught to 
use it properly. Several of the colored leaders came 
out boldly on his side and even made speeches 
echoing his noble sentiments. But our politicians 
were too much hampered by their old fashioned no- 
tions of honesty and fair-dealing, to contend with the 
unscrupulous and well disciplined hosts opposed to 
them. 

While our men were relying upon argument, old 
associations, and moral suasion, all these were as 
nothing when compared with the all-powerful green- 
back. Those funds, subscribed by the office-holders 
under the government as " beneficiaries of the Repub- 
lican Party," came flowing freely into the pockets of 
these ebony orators, and instantly charmed their 
tongues into silence. 

Beverly Nash, subsequently the Radical Senator 
from Richland, tJien thought ;^500 a vast sum — 
enough, at any rate, to cause him to turn his back 
very suddenly on his friends of lang syne. His exam- 
ple was followed, whenever the same experiment was 
made. 

Our people, however, went through the form of 
calling a Party Convention, and nominated a full State 
ticket. The Hon. W. D. Porter, of Charleston, than 
whom no civilian stood higher in public estimation 
for all the qualities which mark the statesman and 
the patriot, was selected a candidate for Governor. 

The canvass was a spasmodic affair ; as, contending 
on the rostrum with those who had so recently been 



46 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

their slaves, was no very pleasant inducement to our 
speakers. When the election came off, Mr. Porter 
was beaten by R. K. Scott, by precisely the same 
majority that crowned J. K. Jillson as victor over the 
humble writer of these pages for the office of " Su- 
perintendent of Education '^ — a clear tzvo to one ! 

This Jillson was another of those self-sacrificing 
philanthropists, who had recently left some New 
England home (?) on a mission to this stricken State, 
that around her sick bed he might watch d.x\di prey. 

It was Scott's experience, as the head of the Freed- 
man's Bureau, which had recommended him to his 
party ; as the eyes of the whole hungry crew were 
fixed upon the Treasury, and he was known to have 
become expert in diverting public funds. His finan- 
cial operations are out of the line of this little book, 
and the reader should congratulate himself on this. 
He then inaugurated measures which have since made 
this Treasury a charnel house of fraud, crime and 
corruption, whose exploration would become equally 
disgusting to reader and to writer.* His lead has 
been so persistently followed by his successors, that 
it has actually become stench in the nostrils of the 
harpies themselves, and we have heard cries for bur- 
lesque " Reform" even from their own ranks. 

During Scott's first term, the whites, for the most 
part, still persisted in the stand-off policy, hoping for 
relief from the United States Supreme Court. He 
thus had an open field for the inauguration of all his 
measures. But, as these developed more fully, and 

* See Appendix — passim. 



RECONSTRUCTION, 47 

the prospect of relief grew more and more faint, the 
Democratic party became sufficiently aroused to 
organize ** Clubs" all over the State, and to adopt the 
policy of conciliation. 

They, therefore, in Party Convention assembled, 
prepared a platform low enough, and broad enough, 
for any one of conservative principles to mount, what- 
ever might have been his '* race, color, or previous 
condition of servitude." They nominated for Gov- 
ernor, Judge Carpenter, at that time the least objec- 
tionable of the carpet-bag fraternity; and opened the 
campaign against Scott and Company, under the 
name of the " Reform Party/' The most earnest 
efforts were made to break the ranks of the opposing 
hosts. The whole summer was given up to speech- 
making and the usual electioneering tactics ; but the 
result showed that it was too late ! Notwithstanding 
some seeming defection at first, when it came to the 
test of the ballot-box, the colored voters went solidly 
for their political masters, and by an increased ma- 
jority, showed how effectual had been the training 
akeady described. 
^*^^^he Radical leaders were, at first, very much 
alarmed at this policy of selecting leaders from their 
ranks. It would be a moral absurdity to allude to 
anything like conscience in their case, but vice in- 
stinctively cowers before virtue, and even "devils 
believe and tremble!' Some new machinery must be 1 
brought to bear against this threatened danger, and \f 
the peculiar military genius of Scott now found a ' 
wide field for operation. 



48 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Under his inspiration the Legislature organized a 
*' State Constabulary Force," having its head-quarters 
in Columbia, in charge of a Chief Constable. This 
tool had the power of appointing as many deputies 
as he wished, and wherever it pleased him ; with a 
squad of detectives and hungry mischief-makers al- 
ways under their command, and in the pay of the 
State, through a profligate fee-bill. 

On warrants issued from some magistrate's office 
in Columbia^ generally based on the affidavit of the 
Chief Constable himself, these had power to arrest any 
citizen in any county of the State, and hale him to the 
jail in Columbia. This was in close imitation of those 
nice little garrisons which had proved such effectual 
supports and constant feeders to the Freedman's Bu- 
reau. In both, the main object was to foment, instead 
of quelling disturbances ; the fines having been the 
inducements in the older system, and the fees proved 
equally efficacious in the new, in promoting active 
service in these vagrant constables. The proceeding 
was very simple for the initiatory warrant. The 
deputy reported some name to the chief, who imme- 
diately made oath before some pliant magistrate, 
" that he had good reason to believe," etc., and, forth- 
with, the irresistible warrant was issued. The obvious 
aim in both institutions was to engender and foster 
ill will and bad blood between the races. 

The next grand stroke of military policy was the 
passage of the militia law under the same inspiration; 
giving the Governor, through his ready Adjutant- 
General (F. J. Moses), the privilege of rejecting any 



RECONSTRUCTION. 49 

company organized under its liberal provisions. It 
is needless to say, that every company of whites was 
promptly rejected on the ground of disloyalty ; and 
only colored companies and regiments were received. 

But, the crowning enormity in this whole series of 
tyrannical usurpations, was the purchasing and issu- 
ing improved small arms, with an unlimited supply 
of fixed ammunition, to all the colored regiments 
throughout the State. 

It required no prophet to foretell the deplorable 
results of such a reckless policy as this. To arm and 
equip the colored race, exclusively, constituting, as 
they did, so large a majority throughout the State, 
and, but a few years before, an ignorant and debased 
mob of emancipated slaves — could only be accounted 
for by turning to the desperate character of these 
leaders themselves, whose well-known policy was to 
" rule or ruin," or rather to ruin and rule. 

In the middle and lower counties, where the Radi- 
cal majorities were well assured, this game of organ- 
izing and arming the negroes, was played without 
serious consequences. As there was no object to be 
gained, in these counties, by supplementing the mili- 
tia with the infamous constabulary force, this " play- 
ing sogers" was rather a source of amusement, and 
would have been enjoyed as such, had it not caused 
serious interruption to their plantation work, by their 
too frequent drilling and parading. Besides, it was 
embarrassing to set Col. Sambo and Maj. Cuffee to 
ditching the rice-fields, up to their middles in mud 
and water — a work only suitable for high privates. 



50 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

But it was desirable to these leaders to have them 
tickled with a sense of their importance and privileges 
as citizen-soldiers ; and these organizations might Ife 
substituted for the Uni(?li Leagues, now beginning to 
flag in interest. 

But in the upper and border counties, where the 
whites had a majority, or were so nearly equal as to 
make the result of a contest doubtful, the whole force 
of this party machinery, in both its branches, was 
brought to bear, with very memorable results. 

Here the constabulary force flourished in full blast, 
and all their professional ingenuity was called into 
play to produce sensations, and to cause troubles the 
most serious. The militia companies were very 
much under their influence, and were drilled in other 
tactics beside the military. 

To secure accuracy in the details in the working 
of these military and judicial devices, the writer will 
confine himself, in the next few chapters, to what 
occurred in the County of Laurens alone, during the 
political campaigns of 1870 and 1872. 



I874-- 
CHAPTER FOURTH. 

Reconstruction Continued, 
laurens county. 

The year 1870 will long be remembered by the 
citizens of Laurens County. Here it was doubtful 
how the contest between the Democratic or ** Re- 
form " party and the Radicals would result in the 
then approaching elections for State officers. The 
Democrats had carried the county two years before, 
but the Radicals claimed that they had not been 
fully organized at that time, and that the colored 
votes, in fact, outnumbered the whites. 

It, therefore, presented a fair field for the introduc- 
tion and manipulation of all their party contrivances, 
and the excitement soon became intense. 

It becomes necessary, at the very outset, to make 
the reader acquainted with the recognized leader of 
the Radical party, in this county, and at that time. 
And among the many humiliations to which we have 
been subjected under reconstruction, it is not the 
least to be forced, not only to notice, but to give 
prominence to such vile characters as Joe Crews. 
But, as he was the type of a large class, who really 
became the leaders in these, the Dark Ages in South 



52 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Carolina, the reader must consent to a rather familiar 
acquaintance with him, in this local narrative. 

Before the war, he was a low " negro-trader/' 
making his bread by trafficking in negroes, and with 
negroes. In their most debased condition their 
nature was congenial with his own, and he so fully 
understood and appreciated their peculiar character- 
istics, that he found no difficulty in becoming their 
recognized leader in their changed condition ; and in 
making more money out of them, and by means of 
their votes, than he ever did before the war. His 
availability was soon recognized in Columbia, and 
we shortly find him a '' member of the Legislature,^' 
a *' Commissioner of Elections," a " military Aid " to 
the redoubtable Scott, a " Trial Justice," and a 
general dispenser of all the local offices within the 
gift of the Governor. In Columbia, he was generally 
distinguished as among the scavengers of the carpet- 
bag government — always a ready tool to do their 
" dirty work," — which office he found to be no sine- 
cure. 

As leader of the party in Laurens, he was entrusted 
with full powers to organize the militia, and to con- 
duct the campaign according to his own notions, 
which were known to be unscrupulous enough. He 
soon had his companies filled up — some six or seven 
hundred stand of improved Springfield rifles issued — 
with any amount of fixed ammunition with them. 

A complete programme of military barbecues was 
arranged for the summer, always to be attended, 
armed and equipped, as the (party) law directed. 



LAUREN3 COUIn'TY. 53 

It was his harranguing at tliese barbecues that first 
fired the colored heart. Some of his speeches were 
listened to by respectable citizens, who testified in the 
public prints of the day, and over their own signa- 
tures, to his highly incendiary diatribes. Among 
very many other things, he advised the laborers, now 
that they had arms in their hands, to seize whatever 
of the crops they thought they ought to have, and if 
any fuss was made, they could easily burn them out, 
as matches were cheap. That tliey now had the 
power, and the white man must be taught to know 
his place. 

Under such teachings as these, it was not to be won- 
dered at, that companies of colored militia, in going 
to, and returning from these gatherings, with arms in 
their hands, should be insolent, and sometimes even 
violent towards their former owners. There were 
many instances of insults offered to ladies, while 
riding in their carriages over the public roads; and 
of indignities the most gross, perpetrated by them, 
on the premises of some obnoxious farmers. 

All this may have been foreseen, and probably was 
foreseen by these leaders ; but what cared they for 
law or peace, if they could only secure the votes? 
What cared they for the restiveness and indignation 
of the white man, who, himself disarmed, was thus 
forced to witness the marching and counter-marching 
of his former slaves about his premises ; these being 
assured too, that they could trample upon all law, 
with impunity ? These leaders knew that there was 
no tribunal. State or Federal, to which he could ap- 



54 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

peal, with any hope of relief; and if he attempted to 
redress his own wrongs, this would be made to play 
directly into their own hands. 

These military annoyances, however, were only 
spasmodic, and there were intervals of relief But 
the other nuisance of the " constabulary," was a 
constant running sore. These, too, were under the 
control of the omnivorous Joe, and were to be at his 
beck and call every hour of the day and night too. 
There were some half-dozen of them in and about 
his armory, on the court-house square, and were the 
lowest of the low. Representing many nationalities, 
they had been combed out of the purlieus of cities, 
where vice is a profession, and crime their education. 
Ostensibly the conservators of the peace, they were 
in fact, the instigators in all mischief-making, whether 
military or rowdy. Even these had their sub-agents, 
like themselves, on public pay, and known only to 
themselves. By these a constant espionage was kept 
up, embracing even the house-servants on their list, 
by whom all unguarded expressions around one's 
own fire-side, and in the sanctity of the domestic 
circle, were promptly reported to head-quarters, often 
with variations and exaggerations. 

Superadded to all these, and as a backbone to the 
whole infamous structure, a company of United 
States troops was stationed near the town, brought 
there, Joe said, by /lis influence at Washington. 

With all these means and appliances, and actuated 
by a deadly hate against his own race, who had, long 
since, refused him all social intercourse, or even re- 



LAURENS COUNTY. 55 

cognition, Joe Crews kept the community in a con- 
stant state of excitement and irritation, which only 
required a spark to develop into a popular outbreak. 

The day of election, October 19th, 1870, was 
looked forward to with great apprehension. The 
armory was in a large vacant store, just in front of 
the court-house building, and in this were several 
hundred rifles, ready for use. At Crews' own house, 
some quarter of a mile distant, his barn had been 
converted into a temporary armory, ditches were dug 
on the inside along the four walls, and loop-holes cut 
very low, so that the besieged might stand in the 
ditch and fire, with the least exposure! 

He also had, as Commissioner of Elections, ordered 
all the boxes to be brought to town, and opened, one 
in each corner of the public square. Heretofore, 
they had been distributed over the county, at conven- 
ient distances for the voters, in the several precincts ; 
but, for more reasons than one, he wanted them all 
together. One was, that the little game of repeating . 
could very conveniently and safely be played, where 
it was next to impossible to distinguish his voters, 
either by names or features ; and another was, that, 
in case of an outbreak, it would be best to have his 
forces " well in hand." 

All the preparations were clearly known to both 
friend and foe, long before the day of election. Of 
course, the whites adopted some plan of counter- 
organization, for self-defence. They would have been 
less than men, if they had left their family-hearths, 
and their wives and children, exposed to all manner 



56 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

of violence and insult, without some scheme for 
mutual protection. This was done, in the first place, 
by purchasing arms. Several merchants of the vil- 
lage sent on orders for cases of Winchester rifles, 
which were opened and distributed in the broad light 
of day. In the next place, certain experienced and 
prudent citizens were designated to take command, 
and give all necessary orders, in case of actual colli- 
sion. These were appointed by the Democratic Club, 
a party orgaiiization, at that time common all over 
the State. And, just here, the writer of these pages 
can assert, without fear of successful contradiction, 
that there never has been a Ku-KIux organization in 
the county of Laurens, either before, during, or since 
the riot of 1870. This fact was so notorious, that 
when certain citizens of this county were brought to 
trial in the United States Circuit Court, on a charge of 
^' co7ispiracy and murder," no effort was made on the 
part of the prosecution to prove the existence of a 
single Ku-Klux Klan. They had an inexhaustible 
number of false witnesses, ready to establish any fact, 
ou oath, for a consideration; but even Crews himself 
was ashamed of this lie. 

The election day at length came on. Early in the 
morning, the court-house square was literally cov- 
ered with a perfect black sea of colored voters. The 
boxes were all opened, but for hours after the voting 
began, all access to any of them was physically im- 
possible to any but the party. The managers were 
all Radicals, and the whites soon saw that all contest 
was hopeless. By thus giving them the field, tlie 
morning passed off quietly enough. 



LAURENS COUNTY. 5/ 

In the afternoon, a runner brought the news, that 
the negroes were arming in Crews' premises. This 
was promptly announced to Col. Smith, the gentle- 
manly officer in command of the United States gar- 
rison, and he was soon seen wending his way to the 
scene of action, unaccompanied even by an orderly. 
Arriving there, he did see some twenty or thirty of 
them in line, with arms in their hands. In answer to 
his question, as to what they were after, with that 
tact and promptness at lying so characteristic of the 
race, in every condition, they said : " We only 
funnin ; we got through votin, and thought we 
would have a little fun in drillin for a little while." 
The Colonel then peremptorily ordered them, if they 
had got through voting, to put those arms just where 
they had found them, and go directly home. With the 
same promptness with which they used to heed their 
owners, in days of yore, they quietly deposited the 
arms in the barn, and as quietly took the road from 
the village. With this little interlude, the day passed 
off with less confusion than usually attends a sales 
day. 

The Circuit Court, then in session, had adjourned 
over the day of election ; the Female College also 
closed for the day, and some of the merchants had 
suspended business. Col. Smith, of the garrison, 
who had had marching orders for several days pre- 
vious, remained at his post until the election was 
over. That very night, however, he struck his tents, 
and took up his line of march for Newberry. All 
parties believed now that all danger was over. The 



58 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

next day the Court resumed its sessions — Judge Ver- 
non presiding — the young ladies once more walked, 
fearlessly, through the streets in going to the college, 
and business everywhere was resumed — every one 
breathing more freely. A goodly number of negroes 
came in from the country to " receive their rewards," 
but by no means the crowd of the day before. The 
whites were also in greatly reduced numbers — not 
more present than usual on court weeks. Everything 
went on quietly and peacefully until eleven o'clock. 
There have been many conflicting statements as to 
the origin of the " Riot of the 20th October," but the 
following is the account of a respectable eye-witness, 
given, too, under the sanction of an oath. A citizen 
• and one of the constabulary had a personal difficulty, 
which resulted in a fist-fight. This was near the 
armory, in and around which was quite a crowd of 
the leading negroes of the campaign. A friend of the 
citizen, pistol in hand, went up to the scene of the 
fight, to see fair play, as he said. Seeing that his 
friend had got the best of the fight, he was about to 
return his pistol to its case — under his coat, and at- 
tached to a belt behind — when it was accidentally 
discharged. A cry was immediately heard among 
the negroes, " they are firing upon us ! " and, together, 
they all disappeared in the armory. Soon guns were 
seen protruding from the windows up stairs, in the 
direction of the public square, immediately in front; 
and a volley of some twenty guns was fired. 

There was quite a sprinkling of men on the square, 
and yet " nobody was hurt." This is easily accounted 



LAURENS COUNTY. 59 

for. These bold militiamen thoucrht their only 
agency was in " cocking the gun and pulling the 
trigger," and that the blood-thirsty bullet would itself 
seek its victim independently of all aim. 

The effect of the volley on the scattered crowd 
was startling enough. A hornet's nest suddenly 
turned over, could not have produced more flying to 
and fro, or more rage and venom among the assailed. 
Some ran for their arms — secreted near by, the day 
before, in case of an emergency — shot-guns from the 
show-cases, were seized and loaded on the double- 
quick ; others with no arms at all but walking canes 
and brick-bats — all rushed madly for the front door 
and windows of the armory. These yielded readily 
to the furious onset of the whites, and similar open- 
ings in the rear opened as readily to the mad outsQt 
of the blacks. It was no fight at all ; for as soon as 
these sable warriors saw the determined rush for 
their stronghold, they instantly dropped their sixteen- 
shooters on the floor, made a break for the back 
windows and doors, and this eye-witness avers that 
they made the quickest time on record down the 
declivity in the rear. It seems that some of our 
boys who had served from Bull Run to Appomatox 
could not resist the temptation for some sharp-shoot- 
ing at a fl\''ing foe ; but they declared that a black 
target, changing its level every second so amazingly, 
afforded them a poor chance to show their skill. 
There was only one struck fatally on the retreat, and 
he lingered for several days. Two others, shot in the 
building, made up all the casualties of this famous affair. 

4 



60 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

It sounds rather tame, after the sensational articles 
published by telegraph and otherwise throughout the 
length and breadth of the Union, and with the im- 
posing captions of '* Outrages in Laurens County," 
" War of Races Begun," " Rebellion still Rampant," 
etc., etc., to come down to the truth of history, and 
chronicle the simple tale. But the foregoing account 
h true ; and it was merely an election row, growing 
out of an accidental street fight; and, that three lives 
were lost. The whole affair, from the firing of the 
pistol to the discharge of the last gun, did not occupy 
more than fifteen minutes. If the same row had 
occurred anywhere else outside of a Reconstructed 
State, it would not have excited any attention beyond 
the community immediately interested. 

The conflict, though " sharp " and " short," was 
equally " decisive." The colored population had 
suddenly disappeared, and as effectually as though the 
earth had opened and swallowed man, woman and 
child of the race ; for none of them, of any age or of 
either sex, were seen on the streets for the rest of 
that day. Old Laurens could boast of one day, at 
least, under a white man's government. 

The arms stowed in the armory were now in the 
hands of the captors ; and they w-€re disposed to 
hold them, as there were flying rumors of " rallying 
in the country," and many other sensational items, 
so usual in times of great excitement. Armory No. 
2, at the barn, was still intact. In case of a surprise 
from the country, this post would afford much aid 
and comfort to an attacking force ; but everything 



LAURENS COUNTY. 6 I 

had become so quiet, that there was no excuse for 
forcible siezures. It was wisely advised and decided 
to carry out the balance of the day's campaign as 
law-abiding citizens. 

As before remarked, the Circuit Court was then in 
session, and at the firing of the guns, the building 
was soon left to the sole occupancy of the Judge and 
the Clerk. After peace was so suddenly conquered, 
its business was resumed, at least, so far as to hear 
the presentment of the grand jury on the disturbance 
of the peace then transpiring. This was an able and 
truthful paper, and traced the developments to their 
true source. They advised that the Court should 
take cognizance of the disturbance of the public 
peace, and, to prevent further complications, itself to 
take possession of the public arms. In pursuance of 
this recommendation. Judge Vernon ordered the 
Sheriff to take into his custody the arms then in the 
hands of the citizens and with his posse to remove 
those then stored in Crews' barn, to a place of safety. 
All this was carried out at once ; and, in a short time 
the sheriff had the arms stored away in his office, 
under ihe Court-room, and an efficient guard placed 
over them. Thus, before night closed in, matters 
seemed to have cahned down completely. 

At that critical time, Laurens had an imposing 
illustration of the triumphs of "rumor," so graphi- 
cally described by Virgil, in periods of great excite- 
ment. In an incredibly short interval of time, the 
news had spread to every point of the compass, that 
the " fight " was actually going on at the town ; and 



62 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

the casualties and other incidents were multiplied and 
exaggerated in proportion to the distance from the 
scene of action. Of course there were '* mountings 
in hot haste ;" and, during all the afternoon and night, 
squads of mounted men, all armed, could be seen 
riding into town, with no ordinary speed. It would 
naturally be expected, that while these excited bodies 
of horsemen were meeting with fugitives running out 
of town, some s^erious collisions would have occurred. 
But, strange to say, nothing of the kind took place 
in the daytime. And, as to the number of these 
armed men thus assembled, there has been much 
exaggeration. It is true that the instinct of race, 
brought together many bold and determined spirits, 
but these were mainly from the adjoining counties. 
Those in the vicinity, not knowing whence the 
rumored *' rally " might come, yielded to the higher 
instinct ofl^ome protection. It can safely be asserted, 
that no time after the row, were there more than three 
hundred non-residents in the town, at one and the 
same time. Most of these, as soon as they saw that 
their services were not needed, quietly turned their 
horses' heads the way they had come. 

It would be very gratifying to the writer, if the 
narrative of the proceedings of this affair, could close 
with the day. On a calm review, after an interval of 
more than five years, no impartial and intelligent lover 
of his Country, who is cognizant of all the antece- 
dents and circumstances of that day, can blame the 
citizens of Laurens, for what then and there took 
place. What has been so often paraded before the 



LAURENS COUNTY. 63 

country as " a bloody and outrageous riot," was sim- 
ply the disarming an ignorant and lawless mob, when 
they had giv-en the clearest evidence that they were 
bent on mischief the most serious, and this, too, either 
in actual self-defence, or in obedience to an order of 
Court. 

But the truth of history requires that some of the 
proceedings of that night should also be chronicled; 
simply premising that none have more* earnestly con- 
demned these outrages, than the citizens of Laurens 
themselves, in comparison with whom these ruffians 
are the merest handful. There is no evidence that 
they even belonged to the county, and even if they 
did, what county is there, north, south, east or west, 
which cannot furnish rowdies enough to perpetrate 
all that was done in Laurens, at a time, too, of excite- 
ment the most intense ? 

The morning after the riot, the whole town was 
thrown into confusion, and all were much shocked at 
the rumors of these outrages. They were much mag- 
nified at first, but finally subsided into four distinct 
cases, each of which was carefully examined into by 
the jury of inquest. 

One party had taken an obnoxious negro from a 
cabin where he had taken refuge, and so maltreated 
him that he died a few days after. 

The body of another negro was found, stark and 
stiff, on the side of the public road, with no indica- 
tions to show the manner of his death. 

One Powell, a carpet-bagger, and just voted for as 
Judge of Probate, was found on the public road, near 



64 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Milam's Trestle, with several bullet-holes through his 
head and body; and, by his side, the body of a negro 
man, also murdered as brutally as himself. 

Near Martin's Depot, also on the public i«ad, the 
body of Wade Perrin, negro member of the Legisla- 
ture, was found, pierced with one or more bullet-holes. 

These three last mentioned outrages were perpe- 
trated on the public road, running along the track of 
the old Laureils Railroad, and might have been the 
work of one and the same party. The most distant 
was Perrin, some fifteen miles from the village ; the 
single negro being found near Clinton, about nine 
miles off, and Powell and his companion not more 
than four miles. 

The case first mentioned was three or four miles from 
town, but in a different direction from all the others. 

The commonly received opinion, or surmise, was 
that the three last mentioned cases were the brutal 
work of one and the same party of desperadoes, who 
were really out in search of Crews. That, maddened 
by the events of the day, and the whisky of the night, 
to say nothing of" the instigations of the devil," they 
wantonly and brutally murdered those of the same 
party whom they chanced to meet. 

Whoever they may have been, by their diabolical 
work, they disgusted and horrified those they pre- 
tended to befriend, even more than those who were, 
distant and disinterested. The whole community re- 
garded these horrible acts not only as repugnant to 
our institutions and the civilization of the age, but as 
against the instincts of a common humanity, bar- 
barous or civilized, heathen or Christian. 



CHAPTER FIFTH. 

JOE CREWS. 

The reader will naturally ask, what became of Joe 
Crews in these exciting scenes? Surely, this military 
aid to the Governor, or rather his Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, as far as Laurens was concerned, must have 
had a prominent place in the picture. He who had 
made so many speeches, threatening carnage and 
blood, would now, certainly, come to the front, sweep 
the " white trash" out of his way, and thus unify his 
dominions. 

Alas for him, the truth of history must be told ! 
He was on the ground, he heard the reports of his 

costly rifles, and he rushed but it was tlic other 

way. 

His escape gives the lie to any charge of " con- 
spiracy," in bringing en the '' riot." Had there been 
any thing of the kind, his fate would have been fixed 
at the very outset. On the contrary, he was allowed 
to run from thj scene unnoticed; the attention of 
all being fixed on the real point of danger — the 
armory. 

He afterwards published an account of his escape 
in a Columbia newspaper, telling how he secreted 
himself in a large hollow log in the immediate vi- 
cinity of the town; how he was fed there for three 
days and nights, and how he was kept constantly in- 



66 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

> 

formed of all that was going on. That within the 
three days, limited by law, he had opened and counted 
the ballot boxes, which had been safely brought to 
him from his house, and had taken the result of the 
count safely to Columbia. 

What a picture is here presented to the imagina- 
tion of the patriot! Remember, we were, at this time, 
approaching tlie first " Centennial of American Inde- 
pendence," and that this scene is laid near the heart 
of South Carolina, one of the " old thirteen." That 
the cardinal principle established by this " independ- 
ence," is the sovereignty of the people. 

But let us creep up to that little copse of wood, and 
what do we see ? There, at the mouth of a large 
hollow log, where his own conduct had driven him 
for refuge from an outraged people, sits this old de- 
graded negro trader, with the suffrages of some three 
thousand of the "sovereign people," sealed, in several 
boxes, before him. He is, at one and the same time, 
a candidate for the votes of these people, and sole 
Commissioner of Elections to take charge of them. 
He was, a day or two before, the chief manipulator of 
these voters themselves, and now had the sole right 
to count out the votes and record the result. His 
managers of elections who should have assisted him, 
had all fled to parts unknown ; but he was equal to 
the occasion. Not wishing to be troubled with hand- 
ling so many small bits of paper, he pulls out of his 
side pocket a greasy memorandum book, writes down 
a few figures to satisfy his congenial " powers that 
be," and the work is done ! The political fate of a 



JOE CREWS. 6j 

whole county is thus fixed for two years to come. 
Can Dahomey or even Louisiana exceed this in broad 
farce ? 

Joe did not let the public know how he got out of 
the county, but Capt. Estes, of the United States In- 
fantry, gave all the particulars to the writer of this 
narrative. 

Capt. Estes had reached Laurens with a small 
garrison, the fourth day after the riot, and had taken 
quarters for himself and men in the abandoned depot 
of the Laurens Railroad. On Sunday night, October 
30th, Joe presented himself at head-quarters, and de- 
manded protection from the United States forces, and 
safe transportation beyond the limits of Laurens 
County. Joe was looking very seedy and haggard, 
and the Captain's sympathy was soon enlisted. He 
told him to return about five o'clock in the morning^ 
and, if he would implicitly obey all orders, he would 
soon take him to a place of safety. Joe came, long 
before the hour fixed, and rendered himself so dis- 
gusting by his boasts and threats, that the captain 
determined to have a little innocent revenge. 

The conveyance was to be a square-bodied hand- 
car, and the passengers, all told — two men at the 
crank, two armed soldiers, one on each side of the 
captain ; and Joe was to be wrapped in canvas and 
deposited in the bottom of the car, to represent a 
quarter of beef This arrangement was literally 
carried out; and they had not proceeded many miles 
before sounds of distress were heard from the canvas. 
In answer to his inquiry, Joe told the captain he 



68 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

would certainly die, if he continued to breathe the 
same air much longer. Estes reminded him of his 
promise, and assured him that he would no longer be 
responsible for his safety, if he- ventured even to cut 
the sack. As the sounds of distress still continued, 
the captain cut a small slit just where his mouth was, 
and gave him partial relief 

With this small supply of oxygen, Joe began again 
to swagger, though lying in sackcloth and red clay. 
But the captain could easily silence him by asking 
his men if they did not notice some suspicious-look- 
ing groups of men, apparently watching them from a 
distance. This would so stir Joe's blood, that the 
oxygen would not serve the increased circulation, 
and sounds of distress were again mumbled through 
the crevice. 

Sometimes the captain would order a sudden halt, 
and, while he whispered to his men that he believed 
the enemy was about to rush upon them, he declared 
he could hear Joe's heart beating distinctly. After 
one of these sudden halts, they all left the car, with 
Joe lying there alone, and, after a few minutes, the 
captain heard a feeble call from the car. Upon his 
assuring Joe that there was no immediate danger, 
and that they had only stopped to pick a kw black- 
benHes, Joe actually arose to a sitting position, with 
the exclamation, " D — n your blackberries, when a 
man's life is in danger." The captain simply ordered 
him dozu/i again, with the alternative of desertion to 
his fate ; and instantly Joe was again metamorphosed 
into a quarter of beef The captain avers that he 



JOE CREWS. 6g 

could see traces of perspiration even through the sack, 
and really expected to find his braggadocio spirit com- 
pletely wilted, after thirty odd miles of such experi- 
ence. 

He was greatly mistaken, however ; for, no sooner 
was Joe fairly on his feet once more, than he began 
to harrangue listening groups of admirers at his land- 
ing place, in Newberry, in a strain that ancient Pistol 
might have envied. Pistol when relieved of the pres- 
ence of the infuriated Welshman, whose leek he had 
just been forced to eat, cried out, " All hell shall stir 
for this !" Joe was for stirring up the whole army and 
navy of the United States — a threat more terrible to 
/lis audience. Pistol could show a '* bloody cocks- 
comb," as some excuse for his blustering, while Joe's 
skin was wholly intact, though saturated in every 
part with sweat and moisture. 

Such was the exit of this famous " Colonel of Mili- 
tia ; " and it may be added, that his face was not 
again seen in Laurens County for more than two years 
afterwards. 

The little irregularity in the counting of the bal- 
lots could easily be slurred over, in Columbia, as his 
returns were to be made to those of the same politi- 
cal family. The pretended counting mi/st have been 
done by Crews alone, as all the managers were scat- 
tered to the four winds, and the boxes were left at 
his house. P^ven his infamous coadjutor, " the Hon. 
Senator Owens," had made his exit, and shed /lis 
perspiration, under a load of wheat-straw, in a wagon 
bound for Greenville. This was an aristocratic method 



70 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

of transportation, as most of the others felt con- 
strained to burrow all the day-time, and only sneak 
softly away at night, like other beasts of prey. 

Nothing has heretofore been said of this Owens, 
mainly because he always seemed to give the lead to 
Joe, and one such character is enough for one book. 
But those who knew them both, among their appro- 
priate associates, regarded Owens as the meaner of 
the two. They contrast them somewhat in the fol- 
lowing manner : 

Joe had audacity ; Owens is a sneak ! Joe was 
the highwayman, who, when his victims were all dis- 
armed, could breathe forth great swelling words ; 
Owens is the assassin, who deals the deadly blow 
from behind, and slinks off into the darkness of 
night. *' To give the devil his due," Joe has been 
known to perform some acts of real kindness, and 
even of charity ; but, from universal testimony, no 
such sentiments " have ever approached the head or 
heart" of Owens. Joe made no pretensions; Owens 
can be a genuine Uriah Heape, in humility, while 
talking to such white men as can stomach him. From 
statements made by those who ought to know him 
best in Columbia, he was more malignant and fiendish 
against those of his own race, in the Laurens troubles, 
than Joe ever was, and was really responsible for 
most of the outrageous treatment of innocent citi- 
zens, though he managed to keep " behind the cur- 
tains " all the time. As to their war record, Joe 
stayed at home and cheated on a private scale ; 
Owens deserted to the enemy, early in the war, and 
cheated both the army and Confederacy. 



JOE CREWS. 71 

It is a disgusting task to unearth so vile a charac- 
ter as this of Owens, from the sinks and sewers of 
his moral prostitution ; and, for the future, the reader 
is assured, that his memory will be left there to rot, 
as far as this narrative is concerned. The mortifying 
part of the task is to confess, that the leprosy of his 
example has tainted others, who were weak in prin- 
ciple, but strong in covetousness. They saw that, in 
his case— 

" Plait sin in gold, 
And the strong lance of Justice, hurtless, breaks." 

And they soon yearned for the same kind of armor. 
'Tis true, they soon found that they had to stoop 
lower, and delve deeper in pollution than they ever 
dreamed of; but what miner, when fairly under 
ground, regards such sacrifices, when blinded by the 
prospect of the shining reward ? 

Still more mortifying is it to confess, that most of 
these, both leaders and followers, are native South 
Carolinians. The consoling thought is, that this base 
apostacy is confined to no period nor clime. " In the 
days of innocency," even in the contracted garden, 
planted by God himself, the beguiling serpent was 
found, a ready tool for the " father of lies;" and in 
these degenerate times, in the midst of demoralization 
and misrule, is it to wondered at that he is rather the 
tempted than the tempter? We can only the more 
admire that manhood and integrity, landmarks of a 
former civilization, which, in the midst of wrecked 
fortunes and blasted hopes, can add fresh dignity to 



72 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

words long familiar, but never so fully felt before — 
** All is lost, save honor ! " 

The friends of Joe Crews (if he had any) must ex- 
cuse the writer for sometimes designating him as 
" Joe" and sometimes as " Crews." The fact is, like 
Napoleon Bonaparte, he had distinguished both 
names, and was as well known by the one as by the 
other. At the time of which we are writing his in- 
fluence seemed really potential with the motley crew 
who were managing the ship of State; and some of 
his statements, personal to the writer, have reached 
even beyond their filthy purlieus, and, in this con- 
nection, seem to call for some notice on his part. If 
this serves no other purpose, it will, at least, show 
the license of these times, when fabrications the most 
monstrous could be established by any amount of 
*' legal '^ but venal evidence; and will also illustrate 
Joe's accuracy and ingenuity in reporting facts, and 
in making charges. 

The Female College is next door to the residence 
of Mrs. Crews ; and sometime after the row was over, 
it was reported to the president that Mrs. C. was in 
her porch, surrounded by her children, and that they 
all seemed to be in great distress. He at once went 
over, and invited her to come over to the College with 
her family, if they felt uneasy where they were, and 
he would give them the same protection he was able 
to give his own family. Mrs. C. thanked him cor- 
dially, but remarked that, as she had never done any 
harm in the town, she did not believe that any one 
would injure either herself or her children. The 



JOE CREWS. 73 

president confirmed her in this opinion, and returned 
to his own home. 

Now, the version given by Joe is, that Maj. Leland, 
President of Laurens Female College, deliberately 
resorted to this device to get the family out of the 
liouse in order that it might be robbed, or burned, or 
both ! 

A little later in the day, when the sheriff's " posse '' 
was drawn up in line in front of Mrs. C.'s house, 
waiting for the wagons to come for the arms 
stored in the barn-armory, this same gentlemen was 
standing near the gate as a spectator. The officer in 
command of the " posse," requested him to step 
up to the house, and assure Mrs. C. that neither her 
front nor back yard would be trespassed upon, as the 
only object of the visit was the barn, which was 
separated from the front yard by a wide lane. In 
complying with this request, Mrs. C. handed him a 
bright-barrelled Springfield rifle, requesting him to 
take it, as it belonged to the State, and had been left 
there a day or two before, by an old colored man. 
He at first declined to take anything from the house, 
but as she insisted that it would be a relief to her if 
he would do so, he brought it as far as the gate. 
There he met the Rev. Mr. Kisler, and jocularly re- 
marking that /lis would be the safest hands for such 
a piece, he handed it to him. In justice to Mr. K., it 
should be remarked, that he was seen to deposit the 
gun in the first of the wagons that arrived. 

Joe's version of this is, that Maj. L. visited Mrs. 
C.'s house a second time, and at night, and took 



74 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

therefrom a pet fowling-piece of his, valued at seventy- 
five dollars, notwithstanding the entreaties and pleas 
of Mrs. C. to the contrary. 

These misrepresentations of his motives and con- 
duct, did not strike the party aimed at very pleasantly. 

He was complaining of them once in the presence 
of a pious, but pleasantly sarcastic lady friend, who 
remarked that he deserved this treatment for flying 
'directly in the face of a plain injunction of scripture. 
In vain did he search his memory for any text con- 
demning kindness and charity ; and, on calling trium- 
phantly for one, he was silenced by the reply, " Did 
not our Saviour Himself say, * cast not your pearls 
before swine, lest they trample them under foot, and 
turn again and rend you ? ' " 

There were other fabrications of Joe's which are 
too absurd to be recorded. But to those of us who 
resided in Laurens, in those dark days, they loomed 
up in very threatening proportions, when we knew 
with what facility, any charge, however absurd and 
ridiculous could be substantiated by any number of 
sworn witnesses. In fact, the charge on which the 
writer zvas finally arrested and imprisoned for five 
long weeks, did not have even the semblance of 
foundation which might be claimed for these. 



CHAPTER SIXTH. 

LAURENS — AFTER THE RIOT. 

The old adage, that after a storm comes a calm, 
was not verified very promptly in Laurens. For days 
and weeks, after the events recorded in a previous 
chapter, the public mind was kept at fever heat of 
excitement. Rumors of parties organized to burn 
the town at night, and other diabolical schemes of 
the scattered leaders, were well calculated to cause 
continued apprehension and anxiety. Patrols were 
detailed to watch every night, and in every part of 
the corporate limits, and every head of a family was 
expected to guard his own premises. Then came a 
rumor that Gov. Scott had decided to send a regi- 
ment of his colored- militia to garrison the county. 
There was some truth in this, but the prompt and 
spirited veto of the whites in Columbia, soon made 
him abandon the scheme. Then there were other 
rumors of the immediate proclamation of martial law 
by the President, and of wholesale arrests by United 
States Marshals, which produced wide-spread con- 
sternation and alarm. No one on retiring to bed at 
night, had any assurance that he would be found 
there the next morning. 

In fact, this state of uncertainty and uneasiness 
would have become intolerable, if long continued. 
But gradually these rumors subsided by their own 



yd A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, 

limitations. It was found that these leaders were 
more effectually demoralized than was at first supposed ; 
and that they were more engaged in securing their 
own safety, than in plotting mischief against others. 

Scott found that there was a spirit aroused over 
the whole State, from the unblushing abuse of the 
feallot-box in the recent election, with which it would 
be dangerous to tamper, and was disposed to remain 
quiet enough. As to the United States authorities, 
they had so often been deceived by the " cry of 
wolf from these same parties, that they contented 
themselves with sending a small garrison, with officers 
competent to inquire into the matters for themselves. 

There were still two fruitful sources of trouble and 
annoyance; and as long as these, continued, there 
could be no hope of lasting peace and quiet. These 
were the ** public arms," and the " State constabulary 
force/' It is true that most of these arms were in the 
custody of the sheriff; but very many more were in 
the hands of the colored militia, issued to them before 
the riot ; and our friends in the country felt no little 
anxiety on this account. 

As for the constabulary force, they began to appear, 
one after another, and to give every indication of 
resuming their former practices. 

In view of these facts, the citizens of Laurens 
appointed a committee of three, to wait on the 
Governer, in Columbia, make a report of these public 
nuisances, and to urge upon him to remove or abate 
them if possible. The citizens selected the three 
they thought above all suspicion of complicity with 



LAUKEiNS — AFTER THE RIOT. 7/ 

rowdyism, viz: Dr. J. W. Simpson, the patriarch of 
the town, S. R. Todd, Sr., the oldest and most sub- 
stantial merchant of the place, and J. A. Leland, 
President of the Female College. Capt. Estes, of the 
United States garrison, kindly consented to accom- 
pany this committee to Columbia, mainly to testify 
to the readiness with which the whites had given 
up, and were still willing to deliver to the proper 
authority, all the public arms in their possession. 
He was also willing to assure the Governor that, 
while a United States Marshal alone, or accompanied 
bv one or more United States soldiers, could ride 
through the length and breadth of the county with 
perfect impunity, whether by day or night, his con- 
stabulary were forced to prowl about like wolves, 
with about the same chance of safety if detected in 
indulging their instincts. 

Through the kind offices of Captain Estes, an 
interview with the committee was accorded by Scott 
the very night of their arrival, and in his own parlor. 

Dr. Simpson, the chairman, read to him a care- 
fully prepared paper, tracing the recent disturbances 
to the unfortunate arming of the militia, and the mis- 
chievous intermeddling and reckless course of the 
State constabulary ; and urging the withdrawal and 
removal of both these causes of irritation, in behalf 
of public peace and order. 

The committee found Scott apparently ready to 
accede to any proposition that would insure quiet. 
He had just been re-elected by an overwhelming 
majority, and, as far as he was concerned, there was 



yS A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

no further need of all this political machinery. But 
it was necessary to try to conciliate the tax-payers of 
the State, whose sense of justice and fair dealing had 
been so grossly outraged by the means resorted to 
in the recent canvass. Whatever may have been the 
motives actuating him, he certainly did agree to both 
propositions, as promptly as his impediment of utter- 
ance would permit. He then and there authorized 
Capt. Estes to call in the State arms, and ship them 
to Columbia. He also promised the committee that 
his constabulary force would speedily be recalled — 
which promise he actually fulfilled a short time after- 
wards. 

But Scott's conciliation could reach as low down as 
it ever aspired upwards ; for, at the very time he was 
giving the committee a private audience, he had Joe 
Crews shut up in an adjoining chamber, with the door 
ajar, that he might hear every syllable uttered ! The 
truth of this is founded on Joe's own statement, con- 
firmed — for all his statements required confirmation — 
by the fact that Capt. Estes left him closeted with 
Scott when he returned to conduct the committee 
to the Governor's mansion. What use Joe made of 
this characteristic strategy will appear in the sequel. 
He certainly could testify to the time-honored 
adage, that eaves-droppers never hear any good of 
themselves. 

These fruitful sources of annoyance and irritation 
being thus happily removed, the village and county 
of Laurens became as quiet and orderly as any other 
community in the State. The leaders were anxiously 



LAURENS — AFTER THE RIOT. 79 

looking for some developments which they could 
magnify into " outrages/' and thus keep up the 
notoriety they had already given the county, but 
they were never gratified. Attempts were thus made 
to distort some acts of sales-day rowdyism, but they 
always failed in these efforts at perversion, as it was 
easy to show that, in these, neither politics nor 
race was involved, but that they were the natural 
fruits of very mean whisky. 

No efforts at investigating or arresting were made 
for months after the 20th of October, simply because 
there was no need tor political capital of that sort just 
then. The previous course of the party, all over the 
State, had made it notorious that they cared nothing 
for these outrages and murders, in themselves con- 
sidered, particularly when they were confined to the 
colored race ; but when they could be made to sub- 
serve their party purposes, they could raise a howl 
which would reach from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
and from the Lakes to the Gulf. How else can we 
account for the fact, now a part of history, that the 
high crimes of " conspiracy" and " murder," alleged 
to have been perpetrated, not only in Laurens, but in 
the counties of York, Union, Spartanburg, Chester, 
etc., in the Fall of 1870, were ignored and unnoticed 
by the constituted authorities, till the Spring of 1872. 
The policy is patent to the comprehension of a child. 
The elections were over in the Fall of 1870, but 
another State election was to take place in 1872, and 
law and justice, to say nothing of the dignity of the 
State, must be kept in abeyance till then. Besides, 



80 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

a Presidential election was to be hotly contested the 
same Fall, and this fortunate coincidence would add 
amazingly to the deep strategy of postponement. 
With such a capital of crimes and outrages whereby 
to " fire the Northern heart," there was no end to 
the aid and comfort they might expect from the au- 
thorities at Washington. The results of this policy 
more than realized their highest hopes, as we shall 
soon see. 

About three months after the occurrence of the 
20th October, there was a mere interlude in this mat- 
ter of arresting, but from the character and circum- 
stances of the parties selected for forcible seizure, 
public opinion at once assigned mercenary, and not 
political motives for the choice. 

These parties were: Dr. D. A. Richardson, prac- 
ticing physician, and Intendant of the town, Col. 
Jones, Sheriff of the county, democrat ; Col. Mose- 
ley, landlord of the only hotel in the place ; Col. R. 
P. Todd, a prominent member of the bar ; S. D. Gar- 
lington, apothecary and druggist ; Capt. Hugh L. 
Farley, who, with Col. Todd and Mr. Garlington, 
represented some of the oldest and most respectable 
families in the county, and Mr. George Copeland, the 
wealthiest merchant in Clinton. 

It was thought that these gentlemen, with the pros- 
pect of the penitentiary immediately before them, 
would " pay out" handsomely, either directly, or 
through their friends, should the opportunity be 
offered. It is always a risk to attribute motives, but 
in this case, public sentiment was, and still is, so unani- 



LAURENS — AFTER THE RIOT. 8 1 

mous in this charge of black-mailmg, that nothing 
can change it. 

These gentlemen were arrested by the State con- 
stabulary, and taken directly to Columbia, some time 
in January, 1871. The Richland Court was soon 
after in session, but the grand and petit juries had 
not yet been sufficiently manipulated for such trials 
as these. Those in charge of the prosecution, or 
rather, the legal representatives of the persecution, 
selected Dr. Richardson's case to go before the grand 
jury. What are commonly known as the Ku-Klux 
Acts of Congress had not then been passed, so he 
was indicted under the " Enforcement Act." The 
grand jury promptly threw this indictment overboard, 
by bringing in a verdict of " no bill." The Doctor 
thought he was free ; but another warrant was ready 
for his arrest before he could leave the court-room. 
** No bills" were made out against the others, but they 
were excessively annoyed and harrassed for several 
weeks. They were many times haled from the jail 
to the court-house, to appear before the examining 
magistrate; every time amid the jeers, taunts and 
curses of a large crowd of colored spectators. As the 
magistrate would release one on insufficient evidence, 
Hubbard, the Chief Constable, with his congenial 
gang, stood ready to re-arrest him on some new war- 
rant. This course was well calculated to extort black- 
mail, but it signally failed. 

Worn out at length by this kind of persecution 
these prisoners determined to make one final effort, 
and, through their counsel, to apply for the writ of 



82 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

habeas corpus. This was still practicable, as martial 
law had not yet been proclaimed. Fortunately for 
them, Judge Vernon, a part of whose circuit was 
Laurens County, was within reach, and they decided 
to make their application to him. As this Judge had 
always proved upright and honest, and would, under 
no circumstances make his high office subservient to 
mere party purposes, he had himself become odious 
to the authorities, a stumbling block which must be 
moved out of their way, Accordingly, his impeach- 
ment was already determined upon, mainly, on the 
charge of intemperance, and a resolution to that 
effect was already before the Legislature, then in 
session. 

Without hesitation, Judge Vernon determined to 
give the prisoners a hearing, through their counsel, 
and took his seat in the court-house, in Columbia, 
where the prosecution, as well as the counsel for the 
prisoners could be heard. In the midst of the pro- 
ceedings, a dandified colored attache of the Legisla- 
ture walked in, and proceeding up to the bench, there 
deposited a written notification, that the " resolution 
of impeachment" had just been passed, and the day 
fixed for his trial. 

The Judge merely glanced at the paper to learn its 
contents, and, without pause, proceeded with the 
cases. After a patient hearing, he admitted them all 
to bail in the sum of five thousand dollars each. Of 
course there was no loss of time in executing these 
bonds, nor was there any trouble about sureties, as 
the generous citizens of Columbia came forward in 



LAURENS AFTER THE RIOT. 83 

crowds, and voluntarily offered any number of the 
best names there. 

And now it was amusing to witness the various 
exits of these gentlemen from Columbia. They knew 
that fresh warrants would await them at all the rail- 
road stations, and that the constabulary would accom- 
pany all the outward bound trains. So each deter- 
mined to find a route for himself, and on horseback, 
with the understanding that no two should travel the 
same road. Like a covey of partridges, suddenly 
flushed, they scattered to all the points of the com- 
pass, and after a few days, they reappeared in Laurens, 
dropping in one after the other, and from all possi- 
ble directions. 

But the strangest part of the story is, that though 
these heavy bonds were conditioned on their appear- 
ance at the Circuit Court of the United States, to be 
holden at Greenville Court-house, on the following 
spring, not one of them was then summoned, nor 
were their bonds forfeited. And, though one or more 
of their number were re-arrested in the general on- 
slaught on Laurens, in 1872, still not one of them 
has ever been brought to trial, while others subse- 
quently arrested, have been tried. All this seems 
wholly unaccountable, excepting on the black mail 
theory. 

The name of Judge T. O. P. Vernon, must not pass 
out of this narration, without some tribute to his 
noble self-sacrifice on this occasion. 

There were few more promising young men than 
" Tom " Vernon, when he returned to his native 

5 



84 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

county of Spartanburg, as a graduate from the Uni- 
versity of Georgia, at Athens. Every celebration of 
the *' Battle of Cowpens," every Fourth of July occa- 
sion, every public reception of distinguished visitors 
— in fine, every occasion calling for the orator or the 
ready speaker within reach, claimed his name as most 
prominent on the list. He had not been long at the 
bar, before the Legislature elected him " Commis- 
sioner in Equity," for his native district, which office 
he held for many years. Forced out against his will, 
as a candidate for Congress, he carried his own dis- 
trict almost unanimously, though unsuccessful in the 
congressional district. 

He also served as Judge of the Inferior Court, es- 
tablished soon after the war, in the first or Johnsonian 
reconstruction. 

After the second, and now existing reconstruction, 
he, unfortunately, permitted himself to be elected 
Judge of one of the Circuits, sheltering himself under 
the examples set by Orr and Thomas, natives, who 
had already taken other Circuits. Very soon after- 
wards, his unswerving integrity checked many of the 
local schemes of the party, and he became obnoxious 
to cliques and rings. They soon determined to get 
rid of him, and on a charge of "intemperance," his im- 
peachment was already determined upon. His habits 
were no worse than those of many of his associates 
on the Bench, and certainly no worse since his election 
than before. He knew enough of the party to be as- 
sured, that a little yielding on his part, and a few 
pledges for the future, would cause all these clouds 



LAURENS — AFTER THE RIOT. 85 

to vanish into thin air. In the cases then before him, 
he knew, that remanding these Laurens prisoners to 
jail, would reinstate him with the party; and, on the 
other hand, his releasing them would be equivalent 
to signing his own deposition. He nobly decided on 
self-sacrifice in behalf of principle ; and to disappoint 
their triumph and revenge, he resigned his commis- 
sion before the day fixed for his trial. 



CHAPTER SEVENTH. 



MARTIAL LAW IN LAURENS. 



About the close of the year 1870, and the begin- 
ning of the next, the attention of the whole countn 
was called to this naughty word — Ku Klux — by ito 
appearance in an important State paper, no less dig- 
nified than the "Annual Message'^ of the President 
of these United States. 

Upon this subject, it would be supposed, that the 
writer would be good authority, from what the reader 
will learn of his career in the sequel of this narrative. 
But he must confess, at the outset, that he has no per- 
sonal knowledge of the mystic organization what- 
ever — never having attended any of their meetings — 
never having witnessed any of their exhibitions — 
never having been associated with them in any way, 
or in any place, excepting in — the common jail. 

That such secret conclaves did exist in certain 
counties in South Carolina, and that they were some- 
times guilty of flagrant acts of lawlessness and out- 
rage, cannot be denied ; but the writer has good 
reason to know that these very acts were nowhere 
else more regretted than among all the respectable 
classes, in the very communities where they occurred. 

There had been a time, in the history of this State, 
when the existence of such conclaves would have 
been a moral impossibility. The higher law of pub- 



MARTIAL LAW IN LAURENS. 8/ 

lie Opinion would have crushed them out at their very 
inception. But in these days, the times seemed sadly 
out of joint, and lawlessness and outrage became the 
order of the day, much more on the part of the op- 
pressor than the oppressed ; and to discountenance 
one set was only to encourage the other. 
- There is no doubt, that what afterwards became 
\[the Ku-Klux," were, in their origin, simply organ- 
isations for self-defence — similar to those in Laurens, 
just before the outbreak on October 20th, 1870. 

When all immediate danger of actual conflict was 
over, from the disarming of the militia and the with- 
drawal of the constabulary force, the more prudent 
and respectable withdrew from them, and they fell 
into the hands and under the control of those lawless 
and reckless spirits, to be found in almost every 
community — particularly after a protracted and dis- 
astrous war. 

They have now run their career, and are heartily 
denounced by both friend and foe ; but in the same 
category, may not something be said of the *' Freed- 
man's Bureau," the "Union League," and even those 
United States garrisons so often prostituted to the 
vilest and most reckless purposes ? Take Major 
Merrill, in York County, as a notable instance, who 
degraded the uniform he wore, by such acts of cruelty 
and tyranny towards unprotected and helpless fami- 
lies, as the lowest Ku-Klux would have blushed to 
have acknowledged against the most obnoxious negro. 
The chief difference between them would be, that 
while the K. K. would try to justify himself, on the 



S8 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

ground of self-defence, the gallant Major could only 
smirk at hi^ superiors, and utter the overpowering 
argument, " t/iere is money in it ! " 

Bad as they were, the Ku-Klux became terribly 
magnified in their proportions, and their outrages 
were amazingly multipled by those '' wicked who 
flee when no man pursueth/' Their fame had so 
spread abroad in the land, that they were not only 
specially noticed in the President's message, but be- 
came the subject of grave deliberation in Congress. 

Early in 1871, the very strong legislation, known 
as the " Ku-Klux Acts," was already maturing at 
Washington, and rumors came thick and fast, that 
martial law was to be proclaimed in certain counties 
in South Carolina, including Laurens, of course. 

Under this feeling of uneasiness and apprehen,sion, 
a public meeting was called at the court-house, and a 
committee was appointed to go on to Washington. 
This committee was instructed to wait on the Presi- 
dent, and make such representations of the true state 
of things, as to cause ours to be excepted from the list 
of the proscribed counties. Three of this committee, 
Hon. W. D. Simpson, chairman, R. S. Goodgion and J. 
A. Leland, promptly proceeded on their mission. But 
they soon found that the political machinery at the 
National Capital, was far too complex for them. 
There were rings and cliques, and " wheels within 
wheels," very available and exciting to the initiated, 
but exceedingly perplexing and disgusting to plain, 
blunt men. One of their num-ber, Mr. Goodgion, 
armed with the truth and righteousness of his cause. 



MARTIAL LAW IX LAURENS. 89 

even ventured to call upon B. F. Butler, at his lodg- 
ings, to appeal to his former States Rights princi- 
ples, and his more recent professions as a vindicator 
of the rights of the oppressed. But he found the 
Massachusetts Representative as deaf as an adder to 
all such appeals, but showing so much of its venom, 
that he never repeated the call. 

Throu^ih the kind attention of Senator Robertson, 
of their State, a private interview with the President 
was secured at an early date. Gen. Grant received 
them courteously and listened with commendable 
patience to the written statement read to him by 
Col. Simpson ; but gave no evidence of the im- 
pression made upon his mind, one way or the other. 
His reticence may have been characteristic or politic, 
but it was most discouraging to the Committee, who 
had come so far for an interchange of information. 
They were prepared to give information or particu- 
lars which could not be embodied in a written docu- 
ment, and to be subjected to the closest cross-exami- 
nation ; but there was nothing of the kind. After the 
reading of the " statement," the President took pos- 
session of it and the accompanying documents, and 
simply saying that he would see to it that they should 
get before the Committee of Congress, at that very 
time engaged in considering the disturbances at the 
South, he politely bowed us out to make room for 
others. 

These gentlemen left Washington with the pro- 
found impression that their visit had accomplished no 
good result. This impress;ion became a conviction. 



90 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

when martial law was proclaimed ; as Laurens was 
assigned a conspicuous place among the first of the 
counties thus distinguished. 

By a proclamation of the President the " writ of 
habeas corpus'' was suspended in seven of the coun- 
ties of South Carolina early in 1872, and Laurens was 
about the first on the list. 

Though long anticipated, when the crisis did come 
there was much of dismay and consternation. No 
one could feel safe when thus turned over to the ten- 
der mercies of these unscrupulous leaders. As there 
was no legal protection, no appeal to any tribunal, 
State or Federal, those who knew themselves to be 
obnoxious to Crews & Co., suddenly retired to parts 
unknown. 

Judge J. L. Orr is reported to have said that he 
had thought the people of Laurens unjustly perse- 
cuted, until he heard of several of her prominent citi- 
zens running away from legal process, and, as he had 
never known an innocent man to run away from a 
threat, he was forced to change his mind, and lay 
aside all sympathy. 

Col. Orr's opinion was worth very little with us, one 
way or the other, but even he would not have ven- 
tured that remark if he had lived at Laurens. No one 
was safe, whatever his position or previous character; 
and it had already been shown that prominent citizens 
could be hurried to jail, and that there was no limit 
to the number of false witnesses who were ready to 
swear to any statement put into their mouths, for 
money. 



MARTIAL LAW IN LAURENS. 9I 

The sweeping arrests, afterwards made, showed that 
these men acted wisely; and if the whole white pop- 
ulation could only have afforded a general exodus at 
that time, it would have prevented many weary months 
of heart-ache to some of her best families, and would 
have saved our great government one of its foulest 
blots. 

It is a slander on these gentlemen, as well as on all 
the others arrested in Laurens County, to class them 
with the Ku-Klux. As before asserted in these pages, 
these organizations never gained a foothold in this 
county, through all the exciting events of reconstruc- 
tion. The severe lesson taught our colored fellow- 
citizens on the 20th of October, 1870, had proved most 
salutary. They then found out, that however forbear- 
ing and long-sufferingthe white man had shown himself 
to be, there was a limit beyond which they could only 
go at the peril of their lives ; pass that limit, and he 
would not only resist, but he would kill. Besides this 
argument, which the dullest brain among them could 
comprehend, they had been left alone, by these party- 
leaders, for nearly two years ; and experience has 
shown, that, whenever this has been the case, there 
has been no trouble, nor bad blood between the races. 

For a long time, therefore, the venerable town of 
Laurens had been as quiet and orderly as any New 
England village, in the time of the Puritans. Judge 
then of the surprise and consternation of her citizens 
at what happened to them on the 31st of March, 
1872. 

On that quiet Sabbath morning, just as the sun was 



92 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

rising, two formidable military bands, from opposite 
points of the compass, suddenly burst upon that de- 
voted place. From the east, came a captain with a 
strong detachment of U. S. Infantry, who had marched 
all night from Newberry, some thirty-two miles dis- 
tant. From the west, came a lieutenant with a body 
of U. S. Cavalry, who had also traveled all night from 
Union, some thirty-five miles off. 

Soon every road leading from the village was se- 
curely guarded, and the work of arresting began most 
energetically. With two "Assistant United States 
Marshals," — Hubbard, accompanied by infantry, and 
Hendrix, accompanied by cavlary, — the whole town 
was soon ransacked from cellar to garret, and they 
made short work of it. 

Now, why this sudden invasion of a peaceful com- 
munity, with the same parade and dash as would have 
been expected if these people had been then engaged 
in acts of rebellion, or of flagrant insurrection? Can 
it be believed in this age and country, that all this 
wd.'i m^A'tXy {qx political effect? And yet, this seems 
the only solution. Every thing was too civil and 
quiet in Laurens, in view of the State and Presiden- 
tial elections, in the fall, and something had to be 
done to fire the colored heart, and to draw the party 
lines more sharply ; and, besides, many of their 
schemes could, much better, be carried out, with some 
of these white leaders securely shut up in the four 
walls of a jail. 

All the warrants of arrest were nearly identical. 
The charge was " conspiracy and murder," in that, on 



MARTIAL LAW IN LAURENS. 93 

the 20th October, 1870 (some fifteen months previous), 
each one was a participant in the riot, on the day 
after the election ; and had murdered several colored 
citizens, whose names were given. Soon the major- 
ity of the adult male population of the town, then 
present, were arrested ; and, at first, shut up in the 
court-house. As soon as this congregation, without 
reference to sects, was assembled in this unusual 
place, and by such forcible means, we were marched, 
in procession, through Main street, to the residence 
of the Honorable Joseph Crews. 

The marching through the streets, we could under- 
stand ; it being, simply, an exhibition for the edifica- 
tion of the colored population. But why should we 
be domiciled in Joe's house? It would seem, either 
that he wished his sable constituents to see clearly 
that it was Jiis work, or that he was ambitious of hav- 
ing some of the best citizens of the place under his 
roof, for once, at any rate, who never would have 
gone there voluntarily. In confirmation of this last 
surmise, it may, seriously, be remarked, that Joe, like 
the whole batch of carpet-baggers and scalawags, was 
exceedingly sensitive on this subject of social posi- 
tion. He found that, with all his ill-gotten wealth 
and political power, he was still looked upon as on 
the same level with the worst of his sable constitu- 
ents, and his ambition, in this regard, even overcame 
his malignant revenge. For, it is a notorious fact, 
that he offered exemption from arrest to any who 
would sign a document certifying to his respectability 
and social position, up to the time of the war; and 



94 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

that there were found men who signed this paper — 
thus securing for themselves inglorious ease at home, 
but at the sacrifice of all self-respect. 

But to return to our narrative. Thus huddled to- 
gether in Joe's unfurnished parlor, we still constituted 
the greater part of the Presbyterian congregation, in- 
cluding two ruling elders. We, therefore, invited the 
Rev. John G. Law to preach the afternoon sermon to 
us — which he did, most acceptably. John iii, i6. 

About sunset, the order came to transfer us to the 
common jail; and we were again marched in proces- 
sion down Main street, and the whole party — some 
twenty odd — were consigned to dungeons. 

We found in the jail about an equal number of the 
citizens of Clinton, who had been brought up that 
morning by the United States infantry, on their march 
from Newberry. 

The first night in jail was rather a gloomy one to 
most of the party; as the transition from comfortable 
homes to cells from which negro convicts had been 
but recently removed, was rather sudden and abrupt. 
A io-w, however, illustrated their faith by their resig- 
nation and contentment under the strange providence 
which had brought them there. 

The writer's personal experience in these new and 
strange circumstances can be best learned from a 
journal, kept regularly during his imprisonment, and 
from which most of what follows in this narrative 
will be freely taken. 

** March 31st, 1870. I rose early, dressed for 
church, and was reviewing my lesson for my Bible- 



MARTIAL LAW IN LAURENS. 95 

class, when United States Marshal Hendrix rode up 
to the college, accompanied by two mounted men. 
On entering the room, he held out a warrant, en- 
dorsed " United States versus J. A. Leland; conspiracy 
and murder ! '' Of course, I could only submit, but 
asked the privilege of eating breakfast before setting 
out on so novel a campaign. This was granted, and 
one of the soldiers was detailed to remain with me. 
After a hearty, but solitary breakfast, I merely bowed 
^' good-morning " to my household ; and, pipe in 
mouth, sallied forth, followed by my guard, with his 
piece at a shoulder. Each window towards the gate 
was filled with the heads of the young ladies of the 
college — witnessing this strange exit of their presi- 

J ^ »- A. Jjl >fC >fi ^ 5fC 

"April 1st. ***** When ushered into the dun- 
geons, last night, there were three or four of us to 
each cell, and no preparation for sleeping. The floors 
were very hard and very dirty, and no provision for 
ventilation. Our immediate predecessors having been 
negro- convicts who had been confined for months, we 
had very sensible evidence of their influence on the 
atmosphere ; and one of the party amused us with a 
seranade, emphasizing the lines : 

* You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will, 
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still ' 

"Our families and friends have sent us abundant sup- 
plies for breakfast, this morning, and, thus 'strength- 
ened in the inner man,' we feel defiant. The Clinton 
roll, added to ours, swells our numbers to some forty, 



96 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

including two ruling elders, three physicians, and 
the others mainly merchants and farmers. ***** 

" April 2d. * * * * Yesterday, friend T de- 
veloped a new trait in his character, or rather, was 
transformed into a new man. Ordinarily, a very 
quiet, sober citizen ; his friends regarded him as over- 
modest and retiring. But, on yesterday, he procured 
two or more bottles of spirits, of different kinds, and 
was very pressing for all to drink with him. He had 
the floor most of the afternoon, and was very violent, 
and even eloquent, in speech and gesture — using, 
sometimes, all four limbs — and all were amazed at the 
change that had come over him. 

This morning, I saw him sitting on alow box, with 
his elbows on his knees, and his head pressed be- 
tween the palms of both hands — the picture of de- 
spair ! In answer to my question, he had a long 
confession ; the substance of which was, that this had 
been his first experience in tippling, and, by the help 
of God, it would be his last. That he had often seen 
those in trouble made, apparently, very happy by in- 
dulging in drink; and, he thought, if any one ever 
needed a solace of that kind, it was himself, on yes- 
terday. But he had tried the experiment fully, and 
found that he had to pay for a few hours of 
delirium, by long hours of throbbing temples, and 
such mortification and self-reproach as overwhelmed 
him." 

The writer selects the above extract for the benefit 

of temperance men. Friend T was as good as his 

word, and, from that day, has never been known to 



MARTIAL LAW IN LAURENS. 97 

touch ardent spirits, even when prescribed by a 
physician. 

" April 3d. We are under marching orders to-day. 
That detestable little Yankee Lieutenant of Cavalry, 
McDougal, had ordered us all to set out on foot for 
Union C. H., and only to take such baggage as we 
might be willing to strap to our backs. Our friends, 
however, have procured road wagons for our use, and, 
with difficulty, have obtained the consent of thi-s 
petty tyrant for us to use them. We had been trans- 
ferred from the cells to the common halls of the jail, 
after the first twenty-four hours, and have had free 
intercourse with our friends from the outside. Rev. 
Mr. Riley, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, visited 
us on yesterday, and presenting us with a bible, re- 
quested us to promise that we would use it morning 
and evening, at "family worship." This promise was 
cheerfully and unanimously given." 

And it was faithfully kept too. Whatever the sur- 
rounding circumstances might be, every morning and 
evening found us assembled for worship, with that 
bible. No " family " has ever been more punctual, 
as there was no possibility of dodging. That bible is 
now deposited in the Presbyterian Church in Laurens, 
on the table under the pulpit, as a memorial of the 
troublous past. 



CHAPTER EIGHTH. 



JOURNAL OF A PRISONER. 



As all the facts connected with our jail experience 
must be gathered from the journal already mentioned 
they may come fresher to the reader's notice, if 
quoted directly from its pages. The writer will, 
therefore, make free use of it in what is to follow. 

" Union Jail, April 4th. Yesterday we had a most 
unpleasant wagon ride of thirty-five miles, through a 
cold, drizzling rain, to the common hall of this jail, 
which we reached long after night-fall. Our over- 
coats, etc., were completely saturated, and the jailor 
could furnish us with no dry blankets, as he said all 
of his had been burned up in efforts to stay the re- 
cent fire in this town. We had no lights, and only 
the fragments of our noon-day lunch. Yet we had 
our first '^family prayers;" the acting chaplain re- 
peating the 23d Psalm from memory, with the bible 
in his hands, and singing the hymn beginning, 
* There is a fountain filled with blood.' Good Capt. 
Mc. afterwards declared, that while these exercises 
were going on, for the first time since his arrest, he 
'felt a flood of light and comfort flowing into his 



soul.'^^ 



With floors covered with several coats of tobacco 
juice, and with such moist bed-clothes as our bundles 
furnished, we did not enjoy our night's rest. Our 



JOURNAL OF A PRISONER. 99 

kind friends in Union, Col. Young at their head, have 
provided for us a bountiful breakfast, spread just in 
front of the jail, and which we can see through the 
bars; but as we are to take the train for Columbia, 
and it is nearly time for the whistle to blow, we 
begin to fear that our gallant little lieutenant intends 
to cheat us out of this creature-comfort too. 

Columbia, April 5th. The apprehension expressed 
in the record of yesterday was too well-founded; as 
we were kept under lock and key until the firs', whistle 
blew, and then hurried by the well-filled breakfast 
table without a chance to touch it. But we were 
only in a fitter plight to appreciate Mrs. Elkin's kind- 
ness at Alston. When we stopped there, all of us 
were crowded into her little reception room, where 
she soon presented herself with a two gallon coffee 
pot, quite full, and with the necessary trimmings. 

This Christian charity warmed our hearts as well 
as bodies, and we will not soon forget it. Here West 
gave the first symptoms of that pneumonia, from 
which he is now suffering so intensely. That cold 
wagon ride from Laurens was too much for his feeble 
frame. 

We re ached this jail about sunset on yesterday, 
and were marched here from the depot some half a 
mile, " two," and two, Newgate fashion." The pro- 
cession was a gloomy one ; thirty-six hungry and 
jaded men encumbered with all the baggage we had. 
and moving through the middle of the street with a 
mob of negros of all ages and of both sexes, cursing 
and jeering at us from both side-walks. There was 



100 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

some delay at the door of the jail, until some negro 
convicts could be moved from the lower corridor of 
cells, to make room for us, when we were ushered 
into their places, and assigned six to a cell. Again 
supperless and without lights, we had our family 
worship, and, gloomily enough, passed our first night 
in Columbia. 

West becoming seriously ill, the jailor summoned 
the jail physician, who turned out to be Dr. Talley^ 
whom had I known from his boyhood. From West's 
critical condition, he ordered him to be transferred to 
the second floor, where there were two adjoining 
rooms, with windows and fire-places, intended for 
officer's quarters. He also detailed me to nurse him 
with such assistants as I might deem necessary, and 
for whom I would become responsible. This was 
carried out this morning by placing West in the 
smaller of the two rooms, and in my calling for eigJit 
assistants, including all of our number who were fat 
and infirm. I would have called for more if accom- 
modation could have been furnished them, as the 
doctor, in his kindness, had not restricted me in that 
respect. 

Our Presbyterian friends first found us out this 
morning, and as we had a case of '' sick, and in 
prison," the ladies were about the first to *' minister to 
us," and our back rations were soon abundantly 
made up. 

April 6th. From our experience on yesterday, I 
would most heartily recommend to any Ruling El- 
der who may be sent to jail, to select the institution 



JOURNAL OF A PRISONER. IQI 

in Columbia, particularly if he has a father's reputa- 
tion to fall back upon. No Moderator of a Synod 
could have received more attention, nor could he 
have fared better than I did on yesterday. Not only 
" the Elders who were in that city,'' but the " mothers in 
Israel," and, outside of all church ties, representatives 
from almost every class of the old regime kept drop- 
ping in upon us. Thus our Laurens delegation soon 
found themselves transformed from Ku-Klux prison- 
ers, ordered about by dirty little turn-keys, or dirtier 
little Lieutenants, into something like moral heroes 
or certainly into martyrs, in the eyes of those whose 
opinions we most valued, and the transition was a 
most grateful one." * * * * 

Here follows the record of days and weeks of un- 
wearied kindness and liberalty on the part of our 
Columbia friends. During all owx four iveeks sojourn 
in their midst we never ate one morsel of jail rations, 
and our larder was kept constantly supplied with the 
best the market could afford. We knew that hams, 
turkeys, roast-pigs, fish, oysters, etc., were more fre- 
quently on our board than on the table of any hotel 
in Columbia, and our gratitude was in proportion. 
When it was ascertained that our stay was to be pro- 
tracted, the ladies organized regularly for this work. 
Some would collect contributions, mainly from the 
merchants on Main street. Others would purchase 
and see to the preparation of the supplies, and a third 
party would see to their safe delivery at head quar- 
ters. Mrs. John B. Adger was supervisor and treas- 
urer, and at the close of our term in Columbia, she 



102 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

wanted the writer to accept, for distribution, in cash, 
the forty-five dollars surplus, then in her hands. This 
was declined, with many thanks, as we were then 
going to equally hospitable friends in Charleston. 
More than a year afterwards, when the writer had 
left Laurens, mainly on account of these very troubles, 
and was seeking a new home, with very limited 
means, Mrs. A. handed him this identical amount, 
as the representative of those for whom it was 
intended, 

Mrs. Dr. Woodrow was the most constant of all 
our lady visitors. The Dr. would leave her at our 
door when he rode to deliver his lectures in the 
College, and call for her on his return home. Her 
bright face, sparkling wit, and cheery talks, became a 
necessity to us, and if ever she was prevented from 
dropping in, the day seemed lost. Her name has 
become a household word in all that section of 
country, from which the prisoners came, and in the 
heart-gratitude of those loving ones whom she 
may never see in the flesh ; she already has her 
reward. 

Mrs. Clara Leland, the step-mother of the writer, 
was as indefatigable as her other engagements would 
permit, and, had circumstances required it, would 
have shown the same self-sacrificing devotion to the 
son which she had already illustrated in the case of 
the afflicted father. 

As to the sick man. West, the attentions of the 
ladies were unremitting. Mrs. Adger, particularly, 
became very much interested, and furnished his sick- 



JOURNAL OF A PRISONER. IO3 

room with new bedstead, bedding, bed-clothes, 
and many other conveniences. When his wife came 
down to see him, she sent her back with a large 
trunk of clothing for herself and her children. West, 
himself, soon began to convalesce under the tender 
nursing he received, backed by the constant attention 
of Dr. Talley. In three weeks he was strong enough 
to return home, and was presented by Mrs. A. with 
all the furniture of his sick chamber and the ex- 
penses of himself and family home. We will throw 
the mantle of charity over his subsequent career, 
which is an act of great forbearauce on the part of a 
fellow-prisoner. 

There were others of the c^ood ladies of Columbia 
as Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Peck, Mrs. Plumer, Mrs. Mc- 
Master, and others, whose alms and prayers we had 
constantly, but whose nerves shrunk from such a jail. 
Mrs. Howe and Mrs. Peck did venture once, however, 
and the effect on the latter I will not soon forget. She 
had been the life-long friend of my sainted mother, 
and her wild, distracted look is before me even now. 
''John Leland ! ^x^ yoii in this horrid place?" Then 
glancing across the passage at the long row of assas- 
sin-looking negro convicts, and at the bars and bolts 
all around her, she choked down and said no more. 
I doubt whether an actual visit to the " Spirits in 
Prison" could have affected her more. But that 
mother s arm around my neck, and that warm mother's 
kiss meant more than all she could have said ; and I 
went " in the strength thereof for forty days," at 
least. Other lady friends were frequently with us, 



104 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

but a simple record of their names must suffice just 
here. We kept a register in our " Bible," and now 
have the autographs of Mrs. C. D. Melton, Mrs. 
George Symers, Mrs. Preston Hix, Mrs. LeConte, 
Mrs. Goodwyn, Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Boatwright, Mrs. 
Thornvvell, Jr., Mrs. McCormick, Mrs. Horace Le- 
land, Mrs. N. W. Edmunds, (the writer's only surviv- 
ing sister ; she and Mrs. Horace Leland did not 
reside in Columbia), Miss Percival, Miss Gussie Wal- 
tour, Miss Pickling, Miss May and Miss Smith. 

Of the numerous sympathizers of the sterner sex, 
probably Dr. Plumer, and his son-in-law, Mr. S. S. 
Brvan, were the most constant. The latter was a 
Pennsylvanian, yet, though his powers of locomotion 
were very feeble, hardly a day would pass without his 
kind sympathy and pleasant words. Dr. Plumer 
brought two tin pails on his first visit, the one with a 
gallon of tea, ready sweetened, and the other of 
chicken soup. As there were more of our number 
complaining besides the sick man, these proved very 
acceptable. Every day after that, Sundays excepted, 
his rockaway would be seen at our gate ; and bal- 
anced by the same tin-pails, with precisely the same 
quantity of tea and soup, his venerable form could be 
seen ascending our stairs. Where he obtained such 
a constant supply of chickens, in a market so varia- 
ble as' that of Columbia, was a puzzle to all of us ; 
but they never fell short in legs or wings . One day, 
there was an extra newspaper bundle under one arm, 
and on opening it before me, (I can hear his deep tones 
now), " We don't want you to give up too much, at 



JOURNAL OF A PRISONER. IO5 

once!'' Saying this, he displayed a goodly pile of 
hanks of the finest Virginia smoking tobacco ! A 
very sensible present it was, as it reminded me so 
often of the kind donor every day, and caused me to 
bless him so early every following day. Rev. Drs. 
Howe, J. Leighton Wilson, Jos. R. Wilson, Adger, 
Smyth, Girardeau, and Rev. Messrs. Green, Man- 
ning Brown, Wm. Martin and J. H. Thornwell, were 
frequently with us. From such a list, we had no 
difficulty in getting two sermons every Sunday, and 
very excellent lectures at our family prayers. The 
Theological Students also frequently came round, 
and conducted evening worship for us. Dr. Plumer 
distributed some of his own books, and Dr. Adger 
saw to it, that every one who needed it should be 
supplied with a neat copy of the New Testament and 
Psalms, bound together. 

Eternity alone will develop all the fruits of these 
high religious privileges ; but the writer knows of 
three cases, where they were most signally blessed. 
One of tiiese was a gentleman of high standing, who, 
before his imprisonment, seldom attended church, 
and was rather sceptical in his views. A few weeks 
after his liberation, he appeared before the session of 
the Presbyterian Church in Laurens, on a profession 
of faith, and has since become a Ruling Elder and 
one of the pillars of the church. Whether such re- 
sults as these did not compensate a thousand fold for 
all our troubles, is a home question, materially modi- 
fying the cry of " martyrdom." 

Our " fellow-citizens," who honored us by their 



I06 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

visits, constitute a very formidable list. Among them 
can be mentined, Col. Thomas, Dr. Miot, Dr. Smith, 
Gen. Preston, Col. McMaster, Col. Palmer, W. H. 
Trescott, R. L. Bryan, J. H. Kinard, and many others. 
Col. Thomas and Dr. Miot were the most constant 
and regular of these, and their matinee visits were 
always anticipated with much pleasure. The writer 
can safely assert, that at no previous visit to Colum- 
bia, and for the same length of time, had he ever 
seen so many of his friends, and so often. 

General Preston's notions of spiritual comfort dif- 
fered somewhat from the D. D.'s. His remark to us 
was, •' well, gentlemen, we are all in jail in South 
Carolina ; the only difference is, you are under shel- 
ter, and those of us who are on the outside, have to 
dodge the storm as best we can." Soon after he left, 
he sent us a five gallon keg of lager beer. For want 
of something better, we drew it off in water buckets, 
and thus distributed it up and down stairs. Never 
has lager beer been served in more generous bum- 
pers, and never was a keg more expeditiously de- 
spatched. And as to the quantities imbibed, some 
found they had deceived themselves, while trying to 
deceive their neighbors. 

Neither were all efforts at entertainment on one 
side. Capt. McCarley, the oldest of our number, was 
the greatest ladies' man we had. Ben Ballou, with 
his whistling, accompanied by the guitar, would 
outdo the mock-bird itself at its own notes. And the 
irrepressible Sim. Pearson was the life of the whole 
party in practical jokes, and a cheerfulness that 



JOURNAL OF A PRISONER. 10/ 

nothing could interrupt. He had spent some months 
in a Northern prison during the war, and his jail ex- 
perience was invaluable to us. A very energetic, 
industrious farmer at home, he made the most of the 
small area he now had, for physical efforts. He was 
sweeping the floor constantly, while daylight lasted, 
and if any stray newspaper fell in his way, it was 
sure to go into the fire. He said he had not read 
one of them since the war, and he never intended to 
read one again. Once he was seen with his head 
bowed almost between his knees, as he sat on 
the edge of his bunk. Some one, rallying him on 
having the " blues," he said : '' I was just thinking 
that my poor wife had been bothering me, all spring, 
to let her have the horses for just three hours to go 
and see her mother, and I always answered her that 
I could not possibly spare them. Now, just to think, 
she has had them for three weeks, to go just where 
she pleases !" Then with one or more perpendicular 
leaps, followed by successive somersaults, without 
regard to the impenetrability of his neighbors, he 
would scatter his cares to the winds. The only 
memorial he kept of his farm, was a small onion-set, 
planted in a matcJi-box filled with earth, and kept con- 
stantly on the mantel-piece. Mrs. Woodrow fell heir 
to this, at last, and took it with her on her three years' 
sojourn in Europe. Now that she has returned home, 
she has the same box with the same earth in it, and 
waiting for Sim. to renew his crop. 

When Mayor McKenzie presented us with a box 
of assorted candy, Sim. became confectioner with 
some mercantile devices not known to the outer world. 
6 



CHAPTER NINTH. 

JOURNAL CONTINUED. 

To resume the Journal, so long suspended : 

"April 8th. After having been allowed more than 
a week to become acquainted with our new quarters, 
we were summoned to-day, for the first time, before 
the United States Commissioner. It looks somewhat 
strangely, to be arrested under a warrant, requiring 
our immediate presence before the Commissioner, 
and then to be left in jail for ten days, before any call 
is made. But we must remember, this is Recon- 
struction. 

" We were marched in procession with one assistant 
U. S. Marslial at the head, and another in the rear, 
nearly the whole length of Main street, down to the 
State House. Of course this exhibition was much 
enjoyed by the * lewd fellows of the baser sort,' black 
and white, who so constantly infest the streets of 
Columbia. The room occupied by the Commissioner 
was well supplied with chairs, but these were all 
filled by greasy wenches, who sat there to enjoy the 
spectacle of white men brought to grief The Com- 
missioner himself (Boozer) is a poor creature, a mere 
tool of Joe Crews, without whose instructions he says 
nothing in these cases. Joe was sitting by his side 
and looking more like a culprit than any of those be- 
fore him. We were asked when we would be ready 



JOURNAL CONTINUED. ICQ 

for a liearing before the Commissioner? As spokes- 
man for the party I answered, ' just iioi<.\ and just 
here, as we are anxious to learn what has brought us 
from our homes at this busy season, to the jail in 
Columbia.' After a whisper from Joe, Boozer re- 
plied, ' but the government is not ready, and can't 
be for a week or more.' With tliis encouraging in- 
formation we were marched back in the same order, 
having contributed something to iX'x^fccs of these offi- 
cials. Marshals and Commissioner. No other motive 
could be seen for the parade." 

Before making the next extract, it may be well to 
premise what was exactly the participation of the 
writer in the riot of 1870, for which his warrant 
stated he had been arrested. 

As already mentioned in this narrative, the exer- 
cises of the Female College had been resumed on 
that day, at nine o'clock, A. M., the writer was there 
at his post. He continued teaching his classes till 
two P. M., the usual hour of closing, perfectly uncon- 
scious of what was going on on the public square. 
The college is a quarter of a mile distant from the 
scene of action, and the wind was blowing so vio- 
lently towards the square that he did not even hear 
the guns. At two o'clock parents sent to request 
him to retain their daughters at the college, as there 
was much excitement " down street." 

On learning the true state of the case and that per- 
fect quiet had been restored, he formed into a squad 
the young ladies living beyond the square, and 
marched at their head past the scene of disturbance. 



no A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

This was the only bellicose act on his part during 
that eventful day, and the young ladies are ready to 
testify that no negro — man, woman or child — was 
seen by them on their whole line of march. As the 
riot had taken place at 1 1 A. M., in all probability 
there was not another citizen of Laurens who knew 
less of it than the writer, until he was informed of 
it some three hours after it was all over. 
Now for the 

FARCE IN THE COURT HOUSE. 

*^ April 1 8th, At four o'clock this afternoon we 
were all marched to the court-house, and there we 
found Boozer sitting in the Clerk's chair, with Joe 
Crews by his side, and the house packed with colored 
spectators of both sexes. Col. W. D. Simpson and 
Mr. Jaeger had kindly offered their professional ser- 
vices as counsel, and we v/ere soon all seated within 
the bar. Boozer made short work of the Clinton 
prisoners. A single witness, very black, and with a 
very loud voice, one of whose names was ' Fergu- 
son,' testified against the whole batch, and on his 
single oath, all eighteen were remanded to jail for 
trial. Seldom, even in these ridiculous pretensions 
to the forms of law, had there been a more outrage- 
ous case of fahe swearing than in this man Fergu- 
son. To hav^e seen all, he swore to having seen, in one 
dark night, and at points miles apart, he must have 
exceeded the owl in night vision, and a Salem witch 
in powers of locomotion. 

" The Laurens C. H. prisoners were taken up sepa- 



JOURNAL CONTINUED. Ill 

rately, and some estimate of the testimony against 
each can be formed from what was sworn to in my 
case. The first witness was a boy named George 
Allen, (or ' Mr. y^//-in/ as the prosecuting attorney, 
Dunbar, called him). He swore that Major Leland 
was on the ground from breakfast time till dinner, and 
that he was shootii>g and ' cussin and swearin' all 
the morning. That he himself saw him shoot sev- 
eral times, and heard him ' cuss.' Col. Simpson 
made him repeat some of the oaths distinctly, so that 
the Commissioner might take them down in writing, 
and they were so ridiculous and original that I could 
not refrain from laughing, and the little rascal joined 
me in the laugh more than once. 

" The seeond witness, ' Lame Peter/ said nothing 
about the oaths, but made me shoot almost as often 
as ' Mr. All-in' did. 

"The third witness, * Young,' (for there were three 
of them) was much more moderate as to the number 
of shots, but made me shoot in a very novel way. He 
said he saw me stand at the public well and shoot 
down an alley, near the armory, where William 
(somebody) was killed. Now to do this, my bullet 
must have gone along one side of a triangle, and then 
turn, sharply, at an angle not very obtuse. Col. 
Simpson calling the attention of the ' Court' to this 
fact, Lahew, or Lehay, or some such name, belonging 
to the ' constabulary,' was called, and Jic made oath 
that it could easily be done! 

"Here the ' government' closed, and Mr. Jaeger 
was about to make a speech in my behalf, when I 



112 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

begged him to desist. That such evidence would 
disgrace a sombre Court in Dahomey, and was un- 
worthy of serious notice. That the ' Court' had 
already announced that he was bound to believe 
every statement, under oath, however absurd or im- 
possible, and not to admit any evidence whatever on 
the part of the prisoner. Under such circumstances, 
that it would be a waste of breath and time to make 
any argument. As we were talking on this point, 
the Commissioner announced that, as it was late, he 
would suspend the matter just then, and resume to- 
morrow, at ten o'clock. 

" While the last witness was speaking, a storm of 
wind struck the court-house, of sufficient violence to 
throw down a half finished building on Market street. 
It seemed as though the very elements strove to 
drown the voice of the perjurer. 

" We were marched back to jail through a driving 
rain, and went immediately to our evening worship. 
We alluded to the false witnesses who had risen up 
against us, in humble imitation of Him who once 
prayed : ' Father, forgive them ; they know not what 
they do.' 

"April 19th. A messenger came in this morning to 
announce that Boozer had been taken suddenly sick, 
and that there would be no court to-day. I under- 
stand, perfectly, the object in these delays. Joe is 
more anxious for money than revenge ; and he is 
hoping, at every stage in these proceedings, to have 
a goodly pile of greenbacks offered by my friends 
for my release. But he will find that ' hope deferred 
maketh the heart sick/ if he has any heart. 



JOURNAL CONTINUED. I I 3 

** Soon after the exciting events, above recorded, the 
writer was forcibly reminded how precarious a thing 
human reputation is, and how the truth of history 
may be distorted. 

" Sam. B. was regarded among us as a ' good fel- 
low,' but he had a very had habit of profane swearing. 
. Something had happened which greatly excited him, 
and he was pouring out a perfect cascade of his 
choicest oaths, Stepping up behind him, and tapping 
him on the shoulder, I reminded him of our promise 
* to run this machine,' without cursing or whiskey. 
At once, changing his tone, he replied, with his pecu- 
liar smile, ' Well, Major, you can say anything to 
me, and I am always glad to listen. But in this thing 
o{ profane szveariiig, you ought to be a little cautious. 
What you know of my swearing is only hearsay, but, 
in your case, it is a matter of record ! ' 

" April 20th. Again we were paraded before the 
commissioner, and both Col. Simpson and Mr. Jaeger 
made earnest speeches in my behalf. But they soon 
after found out what kind of a head they were trying 
to impress. He actually announced that his office 
compelled him to believe all evidence given under 
oath, even if it involved physical and moral impossi- 
bilities. Under such a ruling, of course, our counsel 
declined to take any further part in the proceedings, 
and from that time on, there was such swearing against 
the rest of our number, as must have made the angels 
weep. 

"At the close of this judicial farce, the prosecuting 
attorney (Dunbar) moved that Major Leland be bailed 



114 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

out till the November term of court, and the others 
be remanded for trial at the present term. But — on 
a whisper from Joe — the commissioner decided to 
remand all of us." So the word now is, " On to 
Charleston," where the United States Circuit Court 
is now sitting. 

^'April 22d. Yesterday (Sunday) was a day of very 
unusual privilege to me. Without my knowledge, 
my good friend, Capt. McCarley, had got the deputy 
jailor to promise, not only to let me attend the Pres- 
byterian Church, but to go with me himself, instead 
of sending a United States soldier as my guard. It 
was the last day of the session of Presbytery, and, as 
usual, the * Communion Sunday.' I had the pleas- 
ure of hearing an excellent sermon from my cousin. 
Rev. Charles Vedder, D. D., (Psalm xcii. 12), and 
when the communicants were invited forward, I 
hastened to reach the very seat my sainted mother had 
occupied, on such occasions, for more than a generation. 
But when I saw her life-long friends — Mrs. Peck, Mrs. 
McFie, and Mrs. Howe — come forward, and take the 
seats nearest me, on the right, on the left, and immedi- 
ately opposite, my heart swelled ; and, for the first time 
since my arrest, my eyes began to overflow. I learned 
more of what is meant by * the communion of saints,' 
at that table, than I had ever known before, and my 
tears were not such as we hastily brush away. I never 
expect to experience such feelings again, unless when 
summoned to sit close by that sainted mother at the 
* Marriage Supper of the Lamb.' " 

It was a novel sight to see a ruling elder, at the 



JOURNAL CONTINUED. II5 

church served, for so many years, by his venerated 
father, sitting at the communion-table under the guard 
of a deputy jailor, and to be taken back to a murder- 
er's cell, as soon as he should be dismissed ! But his 
brethren seemed to view the matter in their own way, 
by their manner of crowding around him, as soon as 
the services were over. The Deputy himself was 
much impressed, and called out, " Do, Maj. L., go and 
take dinner with any one of your friends, and come 
back to the jail when it it suits you ! " But I told 
him " it was not so denominated in the bond," and I 
would go straight back with him. On our walk back 
to the jail, he expressed himself as much pleased with 
all he had seen and heard. 1 then remarked that as he 
had gone to the morning service, on my account, I 
would be glad to go to the evening service on Jiis. To 
this he readily assented, and called for me last night, 
accompanied by his wife ; and we heard an excellent 
•sermon from Rev. Dr. Joseph R. Wilson. 

Yesterday was the second time I had passed the gate 
since the rainy afternoon of our arrival ; and I was 
surprised to see the trees all clothed in green. When 
I last saw them, they were under bare poles, stript for 
the storms of March. 

"April 23d. As I found myself in a straight and 
narrow lane, leading directly to the Albany Peniten- 
tiary, I began to look around for some human aid, as 
the command is to watcJi as well as pray. Under this 
' suspension of the habeas corpus,^ there was no 
tribunal. State or Federal, to which I could appeal. I 
then remembered my old friend Stephen J. Field, once 



I l6 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

my classmate at Williams College, Mass., now Asso- 
ciate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, from California. I had renewed my acquain- 
tance with him, most pleasantly, in my recent visit to 
Washington ; when, as one of a committee, I had gone 
thereto intercede with the President, to prevent these 
very judicial outrages that have now come upon us. 
Judge Field had invited Col. Simpson and myself to 
dine with him, on that occasion, and, on parting at the 
close of a very pleasant evening, he had made me 
promise to call on him, if ever I thought he could 
serve me. 

"On yesterday, I thought the time had come, and I 
wrote him a long Iliad of woes, beginning with my 
arrest, and ending with the scene in the court-house. 
I told him, that, just at this time, the road to the Pen- 
itentiary was very short and direct, in this latitude. 
That under the direction of any prominent radical or 
scalawag, the magistrate was bound to issue his war- 
rant; then, the United States Commissioner was bound 
to remand for trial ; then, the packed grand jury was 
bound to find a ' True Bill ; ' then, the equally packed 
petit jury was bound to find a verdict of * guilty ; ' and 
the judge was not only bound to send to the Albany 
Penetintiary, but was the very old Bond himself! 
That I had already taken two of these five steps, and 
I would look to him to block the lane in some way, 
or have me thrown over the fence.'' * * * * 

(This letter secured the release of all of us a very 
short time afterwards.) 

" April 24th. Some ten days ago, Hubbard, the 



JOURNAL CONTINUED. 11/ 

Marshal, selected one of the Ch'nton prisoners, Mark 
by name, and placed him in solitary confine- 
ment, among the negro convicts, restricting his ra- 
tions to bread and water. This Mark was an ignorant, 
weak foreigner, who had located at Clinton but a 
short time before his arrest. Every day, Hubbard 
would take him to the Commissioner's ofifice, and, in 
a few hours afterwards, would bring him back to his 
cell. As all communication was cut off on our side, 
we could only conjecture the object of all this. Yes- 
terday, however, he was released, and confessed that 
he had been starved into swearing some statements 
against his Clinton friends, but will not divulge what 
it is. 

*' We conjectured, all along, that this was the object, 
as many ' swift witnesses ' had been manufactured in 
the same way, in the cases from York County. Select 
the proper subject, terrify him with threats, and re- 
duce him to the very verge of starvation ; tJien offer 
him his liberty and a small pecuniary reward, and 
such creatures as Mark are ready to swear to any- 
thing prescribed. Now^ the rumor is, that the Clin- 
ton prisoners are to be taken to Charleston, at once. 

"April 25th. And they were taken down that 
very afternoon. About 4 o'clock P. M., the word 
came for all them to get ready for the night train at 
7 P. M., and soon afterwards we heard the rattling of 
Jiand-cuffs, thrown out in the passage below. Dr. 
Craig and Sim. Pearson, of my mess, at first thought 
that only a few would be subjected to that indignity, 
but both of them were soon summoned down to join 



I I 8 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

the procession. Sim. called for an artist, to. have the 
scene photographed, and, failing in this, he insisted 
that a chain should be put around his neck, and the 
other end given to that very black witness, Ferguson, 
mounted on a very white mule. He thought this 
would cap the climax to all the Ku-Klux shows yet 
exhibited in Columbia, and he was willing to take 
the leading part. 

'* Unfortunately, just at this time, Dr. Plumer, Mrs. 
Woodrow, and Miss Gussie W. entered the passage, 
and witnessed the process of hand-cuffiing these 
eighteen gentlemen. Mrs. W., who had heretofore 
enlivened us with her wit and exhaustless humor, 
came running up to my room, nearly convulsed, her 
sobs almost tearing her little frame to shivers. In 
vain did I threaten to szvitcli her, for proving such a 
cry-baby at last; for a time she was past all rallying. 
Miss Gussie took her stand at the window, in my 
room, to see the procession pass out of the gate. As 
the leaders first appeared, she swayed herself back- 
wards, till, I thought, her spine must crack, and bring- 
ing both clenched fists down on the window-sill with 
all her force, and, as though there were no bones in 
them, she hissed out, * Oh, that I could smite you all 
to the centre of the earth !' Then turning to us, her 
eyes actually sparkling light, she exclaimed, ' Mrs. 
Woodrow, is there a God in heaven, who can look on 
this, and not smite these wretches — not open the earth 
beneath their feet and swallow them all ? I aui bad, 
I feel very bad now, and I fear this sight will make 
me an infidel !' Old Capt. McCarley, sitting next to 



JOURNAL CONTINUED. II9 

nie, whispered, ' Major, that girl is an angel !' Mrs. 
W., overhearing this, raUied enough to whisper be- 
hind her hand, ' Fallen angel ! ' " 

Even a scene like this did not disturb Dr. Plumer's 
equanimity, and, even here, he could litter exactly 
the right words, at the right time. Glancing through 
the window at the procession, and coming to my 
side, he said, solemnly, " Major Leland, remember, 
that all the time our Saviour was upon earth, he was 
a citizen of a subjugated country / " * ^^ :h ^u >ic 
Our Clinton friends behaved like men, and we were 
not ashamed of them in any particular. 

" April 26th. I have, once or twice, mentioned 
* negro convicts' in this Journal, as faring very 
roughly. But there is a notable exception, in the 
person of a dandified imported negro, from Beaufort, 
I think, who has been sentenced to so many months 
imprisonment, for stuffing ballot-boxes, making false 
returns, etc. His apartments are near ours, and fur- 
nished in a style to do credit to a first-class hotel. 
He has there several of the ' members chairs,' and 
two of the veritable ' $'^ spittoons,' from the State 
House. He sometimes takes his meals in his quar- 
ters, but, generally, he is out on the streets from 
early in the morning till late at night. Says he is 
reading law with one of the sable practitioners — 
Elliott, perhaps. Take either one of our friends, in 
his cell down stairs, and this fellow in his room up- 
stairs, and we have a very good illustration of the state 
of things outside too, particularly as the white man is 
only under a 'charge,^ and 'malicious,' at that, and 
the negro is already tried and convicted f 



120 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

"April 27th. Our roll is dwindling very fast. Since 
the Clinton men left, in a body, our village prisoners 
have become much reduced in force. Called before 
the Commissioner very often — fees, $2 each for each 
hearing — they have successively been allowed bail 
till the November term, until our number is reduced 
X.Q four. These are Capt. McCarley, Dr. McCoy, Dr. 
Black, and myself Even with this small number, 
we are still separated, Drs. McCoy and Black being 
still confined to the corridors down stairs. Beverly 
Potter was the last to leave us to-day. I miss him 
very much. I regard him as true a man as ever went 
to a Ku-Klux jail, or kept out of it, either. His good- 
ness of heart is unfailing. When that poor creature, 
West, was so ill, and the ladies could not be with 
him at night. Potter sat by his bed-side three nights 
in succession, watching over him, and nursing him as 
faithfully as ever mother watched and nursed her 
offsprmg. In the mess, he was always making sacri- 
fices for the benefit of others, even in the culinary 
department. He was rather prolix in telling a story, 
but I wish he was here to-night to tell me another." 



CHAPTER TENTH. 

JOURNAL CONCLUDED. 

" April 28th. We heard from the Clinton delegation 
to-day, and they informed us that they had rather a 
rough time of it going down. After they had been 
paraded through the streets of Columbia, in hand- 
cuffs, they were locked up in the same car, with the 
colored witnesses against them, including the famous 

* Ferguson.' Arriv^ed in Charleston, they were 
marched a mile and a half through the streets to the 
' House of Correction,' formerly known as the 

* Suear-House.' But kind friends were awaitinsf 
their arrival, and they were faring now even more 
sumptuously than they had done in Columbia. 

" Under the inspiration of this letter, I immediately 
sat down, and penned the following doggerel lines, 
addressed to Sim. Pearson. Its insertion here is only 
excusable on the same ground that Dr. Johnson pro- 
fessed himself pleased with the dancing-dog — ' not 
that the dog danced so well, but that the dog could 
dance at all :^ '^ 

My dear friend Simeon, 

I have the opinion, 
Tour motto is now grown bigger 5 

** Whatever is, is right!" 

" Let it come Jay or night, 
From heaven, earth or hell, man or nigger." 

When I saw you hand-cuff'd, 

I thought noiv he is bluff 'd, 
No chance, now, to show the "Old Rebel;" 

But, as if led out to dance, 

You seemed seeking this chance 
To spite both Joe Crews and the debble. 



122 A VOICE FROM SOU I H CAROLINA. 

In this right down hard luck, 

I admired your pluck, 
And will publish it home and abroad 5 

Let man do his worst, 

Though with rage he may burst, 
" Old Sim" mocks them, with strength fresh from Go'l. 

I have missed you, my friend, 

In my snug little den ; 
Though friends have heen kinder than ever 5 

I miss all your capers. 

Your burning my papers, 
Your cooking and sweeping, so clever, 

Friend Craig, too, I need 

My newspapers to read, 
He gone, I can't make an impression, 

I'm afraid he'll grow bold. 

With no Captain to scold, 
Each sin, and each little transgression. 

Now, the Captain and I 

Can go under the sky, 
And sit in the sun, when he shines | 

Though we know 'tis still jail, 

And we cannot give bail, 
None hear from us murmurs or whines. . 

Still our lady-friends come, 

Each fresh from her home, 
To cheer us in this long confinement j 

We love their sweet smiles, 

We admire their wiles. 
To cheat us all back to refinement. 

We had ice-cream to-day, 

A large churn, without pay, 
Sent by these same ladies, God bless them ! 

Each ate his own dish up, 

And even friend Bishop 
Was so full that he wished to caress them. 

West went oft to day, 

Quite bright and so gay; 
With a trunk from these same ladies' bounty ; 

Rich gifts and some pelf 

For his wife, chicks and self; 
(He's made money by serving his country). 



JOURNAL CONCLUDED. I 23 

Now, Simeon, my friend, 
Where ivill this all end ? 
"That's not on us tioiu /" 
You say with a bow ; 
Well, I believe you are right, 
So, "old fell," good night ! 
Don't kick up a row, 
Nor get •' under cow." 

April 30th. The Captain and I have had to apolo- 
gise to our friends, both ladies and gentlemen, for 
trespassing on their kindness and hos-j^itality so long, 
quoting the language of Charles II. on his death-bed, 
that he was an unconscionable long time in dying, 
and he hoped his friends would excuse him, as he 
would never do so again. Their reply was that they 
had had their jail visits as a part of the programme 
for each day, for so many weeks, that they would feel 
at a loss when we left, and would miss the excite- 
ment and the stimulus to patriotism and good works. 

The Captain and I, " true yoke fellows,^' are the 
only occupants of our large room. From the morn- 
ing of our arrest to this pleasant afternoon we have 
never been out of the reach of each other's voices, 
excepting when I went to Church, through his kind- 
ness. I can safely say that in all these days, nights 
and weeks no unpleasant word, act, or look has ever 
passed between us. Neither one of us is remarkably 
good-natured at home, but our temperaments seem 
to be exactly fitted to one another in jail. 

It is astonishincf how human nature can accommo- 
date itself to any change of circumstances, however 
violent the transition may at first appear. Here I 
have been in jail for one whole month, on a charge of 



124 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

"conspiracy and murder," and am constrained to 
look back upon this time as one of the most pleasant 
visits I have ever paid to Columbia, Physically, I 
have been very comfortable. Could rise as early in 
the morning as I pleased, and, from the abundance of 
hydrant water, could indulge my amphibious propen- 
sity for bathing, to the top of my bent. From the 
generous supplies of loving hearts, I could have my 
meals at any hour to suit my purposes, and our old 
family servant, Polly, a distinguished laundress, kept 
my " chest" well supplied. Socially, morally and in- 
tellectually, the list of names, already given in these 
pages, the books and papers they so constantly fur- 
nished us, and the sweet and frequent correspondence 
with loved ones at home, and with old College friends 
and former pupils^ both in and out of the State, all 
show that there was little danger of time hanging 
heavily on our hands. 

And then our religious privileges, not only in lis- 
tening to some of the best sermons we have ever 
heard, but in holding sweet converse with these emi- 
nently gifted and godly men. 

With all these resources within, how contemptu- 
ously could we look down upon the pigmy tribe of 
Radicals and scalawags, who were trying to convince 
themselves that they were persecuting and degrading 
us. Joe Crews, sometimes comes sneaking along the 
passages, but any stranger would take him for the 
culprit, nor would he miss it, either. 

I forgot to record, in the proper place, that we were 
assured in a mysterious way, when we first arrived, 



JOURNAL CONCLUDED. 125 

that by paying ^250 each, we could all be released. 
In response, we passed a unanimous resolution, that 
we would not pay one cent more than the law might 
force out of us. 

Charleston, May 1st. I was interrupted, in my 
moralizing in Columbia jail, yesterday afternoon, by 
the entrance of Mrs. Woodrow, Mrs. Clara Leland 
and Mrs. Hix, who informed us that we were to be 
taken to Charleston, on the night train, and that they 
had come to see us off Mrs. W. had brought wreaths 
for our wrists, should we be handcuffed, and they 
were talking quite bravely of what they had pre- 
pared to say to the officials, when the time came. I 
told them we had no doubt they felt so then, but 
when the time did come, they would find themselves 
much more demoralized than when spiders and bugs 
fell on them. I had almost to force them to their 
carriage, when the time approached, and it was none 
too soon. Mrs. W. presented the Captain and myself 
each with a rose-bud,* to be worn in our button- 
holes, charging us to keep them as long as she would 
the " match-box," which she then and there appro- 
priated. 

Immediately after they left us, there was a clanking 
of steel in the passage below; and on being sum- 
moned down, we saw the tableau of Drs. McCoy and 
Black, bound together by " hooks of steel," and 
standing as immovable as statues. Soon one of these 
bracelets was adjusted to my left wrist, but when they 



■^ Both of us have our rose-buds still — 1878. 



126 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

attempted the Captain, it could not meet. A second 
and a third pair were tried, with Hke results. A 
fourth experiment caused the clasping, but only by 
tight squeezing. The fact is, the Captain had the 
wrist of " a son of Anack," and that saved us. I 
pledged myself to the Marshal, that I would hold his 
hand in mine, all the way to the depot, if he would 
only release him from the danger of strangulation, 
and this seemed to touch whatever there was of hu- 
manity in him, for he immediately released us all, 
saying, " If I can't handcuff one, I wont handcuff 
any." 

On our march to the depot, we recognized the car- 
riage of our friends, near a corner where we had to 
pass. As we came to the nearest point, Capt. Mc. 
waved botJi hands, in token of the absence of hand- 
cuffs, and three white handkerchiefs, enthusiastically 
tossed from the windows of the carriage, was the last 
we saw of these loving hearts, in our jail campaign. 

We, too, were locked up with our colored wit- 
nesses, in the same car; the design, evidently, being 
lo give them an opportunity to triumph over, and 
insult us, if they pleased. In this, how^ever, they were 
disappointed. These poor creatures believed that 
they were engaged in a money speculation. They 
were receiving a handsome per diem, and what 
seemed to them, large sums for repeating, under 
oath, what had been put into their mouths ; and this, 
they thought, was the easiest way of earning money 
they had ever tried. They felt no animosity against 
the prisoners. In fact, they tried to entertain us with 



JOURNAL CONCLUDED. 12/ 

their songs and stories, and, at the different stations, 
were always ready to wait on us, in purchasing sup- 
plies, whenever called on. 

Arrived in Charleston, we, too, were marched 
through the streets, and conducted to the common 
jail. Here, as in every other change of base, our 
experience was rather rough, at first. The jailor, re- 
ceiving us as " Ku-Klux prisoners from the up-coun- 
try," had us conducted to his most secure stronghold. 
This was the third story of his " tower," a cylindrical 
structure, with cells, on each story, opening on a nar- 
row circular passage — like the holes in a circular 
mouse-trap. In this passage I am now pencilling 
these lines, in no very enviable frame of mind. 

May 2d. The United States jailor at the " Sugar- 
liouse " claimed us as Ids guests, on yesterday after- 
noon, and, as our board had cost him very little, so 
far, was glad to transfer us to these more liberal quar- 
ters. Here we are again with our Clinton friends, a 
laree hall being: assi^rned for our exclusive use. Our 
friends were enthusiastic on the subject of Charleston 
hospitality. Abundant meals were furnished, twice a 
day, in large hamper baskets, and facilities afforded 
for spreading a regular table. At night, a lady sur- 
prised me with a basketofjt'/j:-mz/;j-, sent, ready-boiled; 
and I had to dissect and eat more than a half dozen, 
before I could satisfy the curiosity of my up-country 
friends. When I would take off the back of a she- 
crab, unusually fat, some one would cry out, " Oh, 
Major, throw that one away ; ifs rotten .-'" They called 
my breaking into the house of a live oyster, '.' eating 
them ivitJi the bark on!^ 



128 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Hams and turkeys always did taste better to me, 
in that latitude, than elsewhere ; particularly when 
flanked with rice, rightly boiled — potatoes, where the 
" bark" scarcely adhered, and such vegetables as can 
only be found in Charleston market. I am not much 
of an epicure, but my jail experience has given a 
wonderful zest to such creature-comforts. 

W. D. Porter, Dr. Whitefoord Smith, Rev. Charles 
Vedder, Rev. W. B. Yates, George H. Walter, Capt. 
F. W. Dawson, John E. Carew, Dr. Parker, and W. 
Aiken Kelly, with others, spent the evening with us, 
and it turned out a very pleasant reception. 

Dr. Smith handed me a letter from Rev. Thos. G. 
Herbert, an old friend, and " Presiding Elder of the 
Spartanburg District." I knew this good brother was 
living on "short commons," with his limited salary, 
and large family; and when I found a ^5 note enclosed, 
I was affected with a very choking sensation. I had 
received many highly prized letters, filled with noble 
Christian sentiments and sympathy ; but it was left 
for this good Methodist brother to superadd all his 
living — for that day, at least. 

It is not as fashionable here for ladies to visit the 
jail, as it was in Columbia, but a very pleasant com- 
pany did come round this morning, attracted by the 
sight of a ruling elder among jail-birds. Mrs. M. 
A. Snowden, Mrs. Hibben Leland, and Mrs. Chapin, 
did form a very pleasant family-group, and made me 
feel at home again. 

But I ought to feel very uneasy, as the morning 
papers announce that the grand jury have found "true 



JOURNAL CONCLUDED. 1 29 

bills" against the whole batch of us, for " Conspiracy 
and MurdcrV They probably took up our cases in 
the gross, without looking at the names at all, as they 
reported one name, the owner of which is now quiet- 
ly at home, never having been even arrested. The 
docket is all clear, and our cases come next. Hon. 
W. D. Porter,* our lawyer, has been indefatigable in 
our behalf; and, as he seems confident, I am de- 
termined " not to cross the bridge, before I come to it." 

May 3d. Our Laurens C. H. delegation, of four, 
have only been in Charleston two days and two nights, 
when it was announced to us, this morning, that Judge 
Bond had decided to adjourn the court, and admit us 
all to bail in the sum of $5000 each ! 

Sweet has been the sympathy of friends, during 
these weary weeks of helplessness, and their un- 
wearied kindness and attentions have deeply im- 
pressed our hearts ; but now the cry is Liberty and 
Home. 

Loud are the encomiums and thanks heaped upon 
my highly respected friend of happier days, the Hon. 
W. D. Porter; but, without saying anything about 
it, /"see the hand of Joab" in all this, and my heart 
is welling with gratitude to the earlier friend of my 
halcyon days, my old classmate in Williams College, 
then called " Steve Field," but now, " the Hon. 
Stephen J. Field, Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States." 



* Mr Porter had no bill against me for professional services ; but he has 
the life-long gratitude of many loving hearts. 



130 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

But from the lowest depths of a heart, now ahnost 
dissolving in gratitude, come overwhelming thanks- 
giving and praise to that God " who ruleth in the 
affairs of men," and *' who turneth the hearts of men 
even as the rivers of water are turned." 

We were soon in procession for the court-house, to 
execute our bonds. There were some ladies with us, 
even at this early hour, and Mrs. Chapin was noticed 
to snap some implement in her pocket, which sounded 
like the loud clicking of the pistol-lock. Being asked 
what it meant, she replied, "just let one of those dar- 
kies on the opposite side of the street dare to hoot at 
these gentlemen, and I will show you what I will do !" 
They did not hoot however, and we had a quick and 
joyous march. 

My good cousin Vedder had already prepared my 
bond, with Messrs. Robert Adger and J. A. Enslow 
as sureties, and I had only to step to the clerk's desk 
and sign, when I was once \Xio\'& free. But I stuck to 
my comrades till the hist bond was signed ; neither 
did it require much time, as the court-room was soon 
filled with willing securities. 

I am now busy packing up for home, and jot down 
these last lines, in this strange, eventful story. I 
must call on friend Vedder, and " Miss Ammie," now 
under the same roof, and on George H. Walter, on 
my way to the railroad, and then ! 

Now, that it is over, I greatly prize this chapter in 
my history ; for I have learned much I never knew 
before. Without affectation or cant, I have seen and 
tasted the goodness and loving-kindness of a covenant 



JOURNAL CONCLUDED. I3I 

God, always faithful to all his promises. I have ex- 
perienced the transforming influence of his presence 
on all things and every scene, however dark and mys- 
terious. From the beginning, and all through this 
strange episode in my life, I have felt a large share of 
that confidence which inspired David to write that 
precious Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall 
not want." My body has been in the power of my 
persecutors, but the me at which they seemed to 
aim was as far beyond their reach, and as safe, as the 
highest archangel in heaven ; for I felt that I was 
protected by the same power, and comforted with the 
same love. The following lines express, very beauti- 
fully, my feelings, on closing this part of my Journal : 

" Thy Presence has a wondrous power, 
The sharpest thorn becomes a flower, 

And yields a rich perfume. 
Whate'er looked dark and sad before, 
With happy light shines silvered o'er, 
There's no such thing as gloom ! 

Thou knowest I have a cross to bear, 
The needed stroke thou wilt not spare, 

To keep me near Thy side ; 
But when I see the chastening rod, 
In Thy pierced hand my Lord, my God, 

I feel so satisfied." 

Over the joyous return home, the curtain must 
now drop, and the reader left to his own imagination. 
It will be noticed, that very little is said about home 
and its loved ones, in the foregoing pages. This has 
not been owing to any lack of materials, as a much 
larger collection could have been made from that 



132 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

source. But these are among the sanctities of h'fe, 
" wherewith the stranger intermeddleth not." 

In this connection, a single allusion to a now sainted 
daughter — my daughter Rebecca — may be pardoned. 
She left us^ not long afterwards, and her early death 
was, no doubt, hastened by the shock of my arrest, 
and the long weeks of anxiety and apprehension 
which followed. Her correspondence, during this 
trying time, is treasured as the choicest legacy she 
could have left us. The writer learned to reverence 
his own child, who taught him much of that " wisdom 
that Cometh down from on high." Her rapid ripen- 
ing for heaven was the theme of all who were brought 
in contact with her ; and the writer can now thank 
God that she has been removed to " where the wicked 
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." 

During these five weeks, the exercises of the col- 
lege had gone on vvithout interruption, through the 
kind offices of the Rev. Mr. Riley, J. Wistar Simp- 
son, Esq., S. R. Todd, Jr., W. W, Kennedy, and Miss 
Janie Kilgore, who, either together or in turn, had 
attended to the exercises of all the classes. 

But an extra United States Court had been called 
for August, and every interest in that county was in 
such a chaotic condition, that the writer thought it 
due, both to himself and the college, for him to with- 
draw. 

As to the United Stated Court, there had been 
silence the most profound, as to his " case," ever 
since his discharge, under bail, in Charleston, May 
3d, 1872. 



1876. 

CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 

RECENT RECONSTRUCTION. 

The details so far recorded, are those which grew 
out of the poh'tical persecution in Laurens County- 
alone. In all the other counties where the writ of 
Jiabcas corpus had been so arbitrarily suspended, the 
same reign of terror prevailed, and the trampling in 
the dust of all rights, social as well as civil. 

In York County particularly, tales of horror are 
yet to be told, well calculated to mantle with shame 
the brow of any honest supporter of the present Ad- 
ministration. There the brute Merrill, holding a 
commission in the United States army, and backed 
by bayonets, was allowed unrestricted license to 
bully, oppress and degrade a defenceless people for 
months together. An inordinate greed for money, 
and a Nero-like delight in human torture, were, too 
evidently, the predominating characteristics of this 
^* Major in the United States Infantry." None of the 
sanctities of Home — Anglo-Saxon in its name and 
institution — none of the safeguards of character — un- 
impeachable for honor and integrity — not even the 
sacredness of the pulpit, were any obstacles to his 
petty tyranny. Of his two ** Assistant United States 
Marshals," it is enough to say, that one of them 
acted as Jack Ketch in the judicial murder of Mrs. 
Suratt, and the other was a congenial comrade of his. 



134 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

But these tales must be told by sonie of the suffer- 
ers themselves. They owe it to posterity to publish 
to the world whatbefel our down-trodden State under 
the infamous " Ku Klux" and " Enforcement" Acts. 

Four years have rolled around since the occur- 
rences detailed in the last chapter, and time has 
brought about some of his revenges. 

The black Ku-Klux cloud has disappeared beyond 
our horizon, and the infamous Merrill, after follow- 
ing it to the otJicr Dahomey, Louisiana, now finds 
himself called upon to account for some of his ill- 
gotten gains, before an investigating committee of 
Congress. 

Joe Crews, equally infamous in Laurens, has gone 
to Jiis final account. One morning, in the summer of 
1875, he started very early from Laurens, in his bug- 
gy ; was waylaid at a small creek, some four miles 
from the village ; and was brought back, with six 
buckshot in different parts of his body. He lingered 
for a few days — died — and ivas buried. 

No political significance is given to this horrid as- 
sassination, as he had long been shorn of all power 
from the withdrawal of all United States garrisons' 
from Laurens. Public opinion has settled down into 
the conviction, that it was merely an act of private 
revenge, most probably at the hands of some of his 
own party — some of the same dregs to which he ap- 
propriately belonged. He was only of the scum, 
brought to the surface, in the boiling of the political 
cauldron, and it is astonishing how soon his memory 
has rotted. 



KFXENT RECONSTRUCTION. I 35 

But the old " State " is still " prostrate." The in- 
cubus of the ballot, in the hands of her former slaves, 
and manipulated by unscrupulous and thieving car- 
pet-baggers, still holds the true citizen of the State 
helpless, and almost hopeless. 

In 1870, the first effort was made at political con- 
ciliation, by uniting upon Judge Carpenter, at that 
time regarded as trusworthy, in opposition to Scott, 
who had been nominated by the extreme Radicals, 
for a second term as Governor. 

The result was a defeat by over thirty thousand ! 
To show what kind of material we have to contend 
WMth in these carpet-baggers, it is only necessary to 
cite this single case of Carpenter. He was nominated 
by a ^' bolting faction " of his party, who made pre- 
tensions of contending for " honest fjovernment." 
Carpenter himself was loud and vehement in denoun- 
cing the abuses under the Scott administration, and 
the Conservative party rallied to his support with 
great unanimity. 

Now, in this canvass of 1876, Carpenter is the ac- 
knowledged leader of the Whipper, Moses, and Elliott 
faction — the very worst of the band he was pledged 
to bring to grief 

In 1872, Tomlinson, who seems really to be the 
least objectionable of the fraternity, was selected to 
oppose the notorious F. J. Moses, the younger. In 
this case also, Tomlinson was the nominee of a party 
of " Bolters," and the Conservatives put forth their 
whole strength in his behalf But the defeat was 
equally decisive. 



136 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Again, in 1874, a third attempt of the same kind 
was made, in the nomination of Judge Green, a native 
Repubhcan, in opposition to Chamberlain, the regu- 
lar nominee of the Radical party ; and this time the 
majority was reduced to some ten thousand. 

In this Centennial campaign of 1876, the Conserva- 
tives seem no longer disposed to conciliate and com- 
promise, by selecting the less of two evils, held out 
by the opposite party, but to make '^ straight-out " 
Democratic nominations. They have faithfully tried 
the compromise policy for three successive adminis- 
trations, and have signally failed in accomplishing 
any good. Now, they propose to reverse the experi- 
ment, and to invite all friends of good government, 
of whatever party, " race, or previous condition," to 
come over to their platform, and join in one earnest 
effort to redeem the State. 

The experiment has already been carried out to a 
successful issue in Mississippi and Arkansas, and why 
may not these happy results be also felt in South 
Carolina? To any one with the wish and capacity 
to appreciate her present condition, no blacker picture 
could be drawn of any government in Christendom. 
Scott left the Treasury unbarred, but there was some 
pretension to honesty and decency, in all the glaring 
rascality of his administration. But the spend-thrift 
thief, Moses, threw the Treasury doors wide open, 
and bribery and corruption were organized into a 
fixed department of the government, under his rule. 
The remnants of the Treasury were plundered in the 
broad light of day, and the votes of the Legislature 



RECENT RECONSTRUCTION. I 37 

had their fixed market value, according to the im- 
portance of the measure to be passed, and the offices 
to be filled. Even the seat in the United States Sen- 
ate, once filled by our Calhoun, was notoriously put 
up to the highest bidder, and one Patterson, a refugee 
from Pennsylvania, won it through his henchman, 
WortJiington, a stranger in a strange land. 

Such was the infamous record of the Moses ad- 
ministration, that his own party, bad as it was, had to 
repudiate him. To keep up even the semblance of 
decency, they were forced to adopt pledges of future 
reform, in the last canvass — mere bnituni fiilnicii — to 
be entirely ignored as soon as their lease of power 
should be renewed. But the standard bearer, D. H. 
Chamberlain, had sagacity enough to see that their 
party had well nigh run its course. The very small 
majority, comparatively, by which he had been elected, 
and the case of Mississippi so suddenly and com- 
pletely redeemed, opened his eyes fully to the feeble 
tenure by which he himself held his office. 

He, therefore, deliberately adopted the role of Re- 
former. The sham platform erected by his party 
gave him a plausible pretext, and his insidious use of 
the English language in all his public documents, 
gave strong hopes of sincerity and wise statesman- 
ship. In view of these, and some demonstrations of 
decision and firmness in carrying out his " reform- 
measures," the Conservatives of the State were dis- 
posed to rally most earnestly to his support. In 
doing so they had to ignore the greater part of this 
man's political career. A mere adventurer from 



138 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, 

Massachusetts, he had turned up, soon after the war, 
on one of the Sea Islands, near Charleston, where his 
violent counsels to the Freedmen, as to the vindictive 
course towards their former masters, had exasperated 
the native citizens against him, and thus made him 
one of the shining lights of Radicalism. His legal 
attainments, unquestionably great, soon brought him 
prominently before the Freedman's Bureau, and at the 
Reconstruction Constitutional Convention, he was se- 
lected as Attorney-General, under the first, or Scott 
administration. The State Treasury was then virgin 
soil for the Radical spoiler, and the havoc they made 
of the time-honored name and credit of the State, 
has already been fully delineated in these pages. 

Chamberlain, as Attorney-General, was, ex- officio, a 
member of the Financial Board, and, whether he 
participated or not, he must, evidently, have been 
cognizant oi all these enormous frauds by which the 
Treasury was so soon and so completely depleted. 
So far from any official denunciation of the course of 
his associates, we find him really upholding them. 
In Scott's canvass for re-election, Chamberlain took 
the stump, and, by an array of figures, attempted to 
prove that what are now known as the " Kimpton 
frauds," were the highest strokes of financial diplo- 
macy. 

Although all these antecedents were fresh in the 
memories of our tortured people, yet, the fact that a 
Radical Governor should talk kindly of the whites, 
and actually condescend to promise them some '* Re- 
forms," touched their hearts, and led them to try, 



KECENT RECONSTRUCTION. I 39 

most earnestly, to forget the past. Our newspapers 
were filled with eulogiums on his wise statesmanship 
and Roman firmness. Our most distinguished citi- 
zens were open in their official calls and conferences 
at the Executive office, and our Literary Institutions 
were vying with one another in calling on him for 
addresses at their scholastic anniversaries. 

What stronger proofs are needed of the hopeless 
condition of a once proud people, than such acts as 
these — thus taking to their bosoms, and cheering to 
the echo, a Governor from Massachusetts who had 
only promised not to steal himself, and to use every 
effort to put a stop to the stealings of his friends ! 

Whether these promises and protestations were 
sincere or not, it became evident that he could not 
control his party, and that the course of the State 
was steadily downward. The Legislature, still lavish 
in expenditure, prolonged its two sessions to an 
average of four months each, instead of the four 
weeks promised. The tax bill and the appropria- 
tion bill, those vital subjects of legislation, were 
characterized by that wastefulness and extravagance 
which would have shocked our fathers in the palmiest 
days of prosperity. But, above all, this party made 
an exhibition of their utter disregard to anything 
like decency, in attempting to elevate to the Bench, 
by the votes of a large majority, two of the most 
corrupt scoundrels from the lowest of their own 
ranks — Ex-Governor Frank Moses and General Bill 
Whipper ! Frank Moses had gone into bankruptcy, 
immediately after leaving the gubernatorial chair, 



140 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

which he had so notoriously disgraced, even as 
Scott's successor. He had become the veriest social 
outcast, and had no money to purchase votes, unless 
his more prudent father had hoarded for him some of 
his ill-gotten gains. The negro, Whipper, had long 
since gambled away all his stealings ; and Attorney- 
General Melton had published, over his official sig- 
nature, that he had not brought action against him 
for some large embezzlement because he was noto- 
riously insolvent. 

The Radical majority in the Legislature, therefore, 
did not even have the excuse of bribery^ in making 
these creatures "Judges of the Circuit Court." The 
only solution of their course must be, that they in- 
tended this action as an open defiance to Governor 
Chamberlain, and to the moral sense of the whole 
State. They had the poiver, and they were deter- 
mined to show that they could and would use this 
power as they pleased. 

Probably no single act of the party in power has 
ever so thoroughly aroused our people to a more 
full appreciation of their degradation, and to the im- 
minent danger which threatened even their civiliza- 
tion. Indignation meetings were, simultaneously, 
called all over the State, and the unanimous sentiment 
of these meetings has been, that this crowning out- 
rage sJiall nei'cr be consuiiDiiatcd. 

Bill Whipper's circuit was to have embraced the 
Commercial Emporium of the State, and the staid old 
city was electrified in every fibre. She knew that 
upon the proper interpretation and enforcement of the 



RECENT RECONSTRUCTION. I4I 

law, depended, not only her commercial prosperity, 
but the lives and property of her citizens. She knew 
that this ignorant negro was scarcely fit to be admit- 
ted to a gentleman's kitchen, and her resolve was at 
once taken. Her utterances were not loud, but deep, 
and portended a storm. It requires no prophet, nor 
the son of a prophet, to announce, that this creature 
will ;/6'z^t'r take his seat on the Bench in Charleston. 
The time, fixed by law, for a new judge to take his 
seat is in August, and the matter must be postponed 
till then. Governor Chamberlain has done all in his 
power to stay the evil by refusing to sign the com- 
missions of both of them, but they do not regard this 
as any final action. 

Moses' Circuit was to have included Sumter, where 
he has been fully known from his earliest infancy. 
The full length portrait drawn of him by his own 
neighbors would entitle him to a conspicuous place 
in any future illustrated edition of Dante's Inferno. 

This spontaneous uprising of a whole people, 
goaded almost to desperation by this outrage on all 
law, order, and civilization itself, deliberately perpe- 
trated by the Radical party, " met and sitting in Gen- 
eral Assembly," for a time seemed to have inspired 
some awe in their reckless ranks. But no serious 
effort has been made to undo the mischief. They 
have " thrown one tub to the whale," in the impeach- 
ment and conviction of one of their imbecile judges, 
whose term was about to expire, and whose successor 
had already been elected. Montgomery Moses, uncle 
of Frank, and brother of Chief Justice Franklin J. 



142 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Moses, was the unfortunate victim selected. He be- 
longed to that class of the judiciary familiarly called 
** old grannies," and was equally worthless and harm- 
less. His chief trouble seemed to have been impe- 
cuniosity, and when he attempted to imitate the 
modern South Carolina office-holder in " pickings 
and stealings," he bungled so much that his tracks 
could be distinctly traced. He kept up some sem- 
blance to honesty by borroiving from funds in charge 
of the court, without any intention of returning the 
same; and this so disgusted his brigand associates, 
that the whole pack turned upon /^/?;/, when they 
found they were expected to do somethifig. 

It was a clear illustration of Judge Butler's story 
of the bully, who, when kicked and cuffed about by 
men whom he had insulted, declared that he could 
whip somebody, and went \\oxx\q and ivhipped his zvife- 



\ 



CHAPTER TWELFTH. 



CENTENNIAL SENTIMENTS. 



If there is any truth in the old adage, that " the 
darkest hour always precedes the dawn," then may 
South Carolina now begin to indulge some hope. She 
has been brought low — very low — and even in the 
eyes of those who so bitterly condemned her for in- 
augurating Secession, her punishment must seem out 
of all proportion to her offense. The sufferings and 
atrocities of those four long years of war — beginning 
with the fall of Port Royal, and ending with the 
burning of Columbia — are yet to be written, with all 
their terrible details. Her property in slaves, which 
constituted the great bulk of her wealth, and which 
had descended from father to son for more than two 
centuries, was made to vanish into thin air by the 
breath of a proclamation. But worse than this, than 
these, than all, are her writhings under the humilia- 
tion, the spoliation, and the unremitting efforts at 
degradation, for the last ten years. Military rule, 
backed by an unscrupulous majority in Congress, 
occasioned forebodings of evil, the most fearful; but 
what pen can adequately describe the reality ? 

A sovereign State trampled in the dust, with the 
bayonet of the conqueror ever at her throat, is a fit 
tableau of — Reconstruction ! 

But if " the mills of the gods grind slowly, they 
grind exceeding fine." In very many cases there 



144 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

would be "no answer" to the long roll-call of her 
oppressors ; and time is still busy in unmasking the 
chief agents in this horrid drama, in all their true 
colors and deformity. 

Take the President of this great Republic himself. 
Elevated to a position where he might have made a 
name for himself, for all time to come, as " saviour o( 
his country," he has demonstrated that he has never 
had the intellect, nor the soul of the statesman or 
patriot. He cared nothing for his country, and his 
only care for the Republican party was, through it, 
to secure for himself an indefinite lease of power. It 
was a matter of indifference to him how the success 
of this party was to be secured, and what means 
might be resorted to. Whether the rights of indi- 
viduals, of whole communities, or of sovereign States 
were to be sacrificed, it gave him no concern. Suc- 
cess, at any and every cost, has been his watchword 
from the first to the last. 

And the most mortifying fact to every American 
is, that an inordinate greed for gold has been the 
crovernincf motive throuo^h his whole administration. 
The head being thus corrupt, can the student of his- 
tory wonder at the wide-spread demoralization of the 
whole body politic, for the last eight years at least ? 

A hurling from power seems hardly a sufficient 
retribution for the imprint oi Graiitisui on our institu- 
tions in these degenerate days. He has prostituted 
his high office to the undermining of the great politi- 
cal fabric of the fathers ; to trampling on the time- 
honored rights of the great Anglo Saxon race ; and 



CENTENNIAL SENTIMENTS. 145 

even to protecting and shielding official rapacity and 
dishonesty, when about to be exposed to an indig- 
nant people. 

There was something grand in the gigantic strides 
of the first of all the Caesars, when grasping for power ; 
but the equally gigantic strides of this modern imita- 
tator have been made in pursuit of — the almighty 
dollar ! With the change of a single word, we, too, 
might adopt the indignant denunciation of Cato, in 
these burning words : 

" Oh, Fortius, is there not some chosen curse, 
Some hidden thunder, in the stores of Heaven, 
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the wretch 
Who owes his [money) to his country's ruin ! '' 

At one time the approach of the centennial year 
seemed to have been the harbinger to the *' dawn." 
Certainly hopes were inspired in bosoms long es- 
tranged from any emotion of the kind, and some 
indications of fraternal feelings began to develop. 
The review of the scenes and events of the first " great 
rebellion " on this continent seemed to have opened 
the Northern mind to a new light, and to have in- 
spired their breasts with a charity equally new. 

They began to question one another whether these 
Southern brethren, however mistaken, may not have 
been actuated by the same sense of right, and resist- 
ance to wrongs, which characterized the fathers in 
1776. From their standpoint may not these breth- 
ren have regarded their liberty, based, as they 
deemed it to be, upon their ideas of States' Rights 
and State Severeignty, as having been as much im- 



146 A VOJCE FKOiM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

perilled at the later date as in " the times that tried 
men's souls ?" Would not these Northern brethren, 
in the same circumstances, have acted precisely as 
they did ? 

These wholesome questions began to be freely 
asked and considered, and promised to bring forth 
peaceable fruits. Such terms as " Wicked Rebellion^ 
'' Rule or Ruin Policy," and a long list of ugly words 
engrafted upon their vernacular, by a life-long dis- 
cussion of slavery, began gradually to fall into disuse. 
The questions formerly at issue began to lose their 
moral character, and to be viewed in their more ap- 
propriate political aspect. A great point was gained, 
when they began to utter the charitable sentiment, 
" Well, we are bound to admit that they tlwugJit they 
zvere rig] it!' 

In the case of South Carolina, particularly, public 
opinion began to tone down wonderfully. This re- 
view brought her prominently forward as one of the 
leading Colonies of the " Old Thirteen." Though 
the favorite Colony of the Crown, her magnanimity 
in so promptly throwing herself on the side of her 
oppressed sisters was still conspicuous after the lapse 
of an hundred years. Her lavish expenditure of 
blood and treasure in the great cause she had es- 
poused, was calculated to arouse sentiments of vener- 
ation and gratitude, particularly on the part of those 
younger sisters who had become prosperous and 
great under the very " independence" to which she 
had so largely contributed. 

Even her old ally Massachusetts, seemed to have 



CENTENNIAL SENTIMENTS. 147 

been drawn very near to her once more. These 
ancient Commonwealths have lono- been reo;arded as 
representatives of their respective sections Gradu- 
ally, from viewing the same objects from opposite 
standpoints, they had been driven very far apart — in 
fact to opposite points of the diameter. The first 
great obstruction between them was the '' tariff 
question," and Massachusetts being on the side of it 
nearest the sun, could see nothing in it but what was 
bright, wholesome and life-giving, while South Caro- 
lina, from her cheerless side, saw all that was gloomy, 
impoverishing and destructive. This, though at one 
time so threatening, suddenly dissolved into empty 
eras before some bigf, swellinsr words of Nullification. 

But there was another mutual eclipse, and though 
the obstacle this time was at first no bigger than a 
man's hand, it graduall}^ developed into proportions 
the most portentous and awe-inspiring. This time 
South Carolina was on the sunny side, and she could 
only see in the clear beneficent light of slavery an 
institution recognized by God himself, under both dis- 
pensations, and guaranteed by the fundamental law 
of the land. 

From her standpoint, Massachusetts could only 
see blackness of darkness, imperfectly veiling " the 
sum of all villainies," and the " ragged edges of 
despair'' around the sulphurous pits. Gunpowder, 
not gas,' was now the word, and, unfortunately for the 
country, rifles of the most varied patterns were manu- 
factured in the largest abundance on her soil. After 
some preliminary skirmishing in Kansas and Ne- 



148 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

braska, and afterwards in the " John Brown Raid,'^ 
the grand crashing came at last, resulting in an 
explosion which shook the Continent to its foun- 
dations. 

However terrible the catastrophe, the obstacle was 
gone forever, and now that the turmoil and din are 
over, and the smoke almost blown away, these grim 
old antagonists can look one another once more in 
the face, and to their mutual surprise they began to 
see lineaments of real brotherhood. Each seemed 
almost ready to acknowledge that the same spirit — 
the spirit of the olden time — has all along been 
actuating them both, and had their standpoints been 
interchanged, each might have acted the part of the 
other. 

At any rate, Massachusetts did not regard her pro- 
gramme for the grand centennial celebrations of her 
Concord, Lexington, and, particularly, of her Bunker 
Hill, complete, until she had assigned a conspicuous 
place to the old Palmetto State. 

Armed men, from Charleston, were received by the 
citizens and soldiers of Boston, with the highest con- 
sideration and enthusiasm. The " citizen soldiers " 
of our " Washington Light Infantry," were welcomed, 
even at the railroad depot, by such a crowd as they 
had never seen before. At first they were a little ner- 
vous, not knowing what spirit might actuate this vast 
assembly ; but, when a wide passage was spontane- 
ously made for them through its very midst, and hats 
were waved, and cheers were given, as from one 
throat, they then felt what it all meant ; and many a 



CENTENNIAL SENTIMENTS. 149 

manly e}'e was seen to swim in tears. All along their 
march the side-walks were crowded by eager specta- 
tors, and the beauty as well as the " solid men " 
of this old metropolis turned out, in full force, to 
cheer and welcome them. Bouquets, oranges, ba- 
nanas, etc., came flying fast from fair hands, which, 
those expert at the base ball, were not slow in catch- 
ing and storing away. The only criticism on this 
showering of favors was, that the most soldierly-look- 
ing of the company received more than their due pro- 
portion. 

The participants themselves have already given 
the public glowing accounts of this ever-to-be-remem- 
bered visit. From the first moment they touched the 
soil of Massachusetts, to the hour of their departure,, 
the most cordial welcome, the most hearty greetings, 
the most generous hospitality, and the highest con- 
sideration awaited them ; even to the " post of honor," 
on the day of the Bunker Hill pageant. How, then,, 
could they feel like "strangers, in a strange land?"' 
It was a Jioiiie reception, and they were proud to feel 
at home. And, when they heard the patriotic, liberal 
sentiments of Gen. Bartlett and others of these North- 
ern men, responded to by the ex-Confederate, Gen. 
Fitz Hugh Lee — who was cheered to the echo by 
enthusiastic crowds — is to be wondered at, that they 
should, for the time, forget all about State lines, and 
only remember their country, their zvhole country, 
and nothing but their country? 

The tidings from Bunker Hill soon spread over 
the land, and produced a profound impression ; and 



150 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

the magnanimous, whole-souled sentiments there ut- 
tered found a response in every generous bosom. It 
was seen that even extremists could meet at the 
graves of their revolutionary sires ; could there look 
one another in the eye, and find that they were 
brethren after all. And if Massachusetts and South 
Carolina could so easily and heartily coalesce, who 
would dare, thereafter, to preach the '^ Gospel of 
Hate ? '' 

Alas, for our unhappy land ! This " dawn," so 
auspiciously heralded in by the centennial era, is now 
suddenly overcast in gloom. 

Party spirit, and, worst of all, sectional party spirit, 
seems now stronger than patriotism ; and the call of 
the mere political party leader more potent than the 
voice of the Christian statesman. 

Already, in the halls of Congress, have those lead- 
ers stirred up a war of words to check this tidal wave 
of good feeling and reconciliation, so opposed to 
their selfish party interests, and to open afresh the 
wounds, just beginning to heal. 

From the beginning the '* father of his country " 
warned his fellow-citizens, and their posterity, against 
causing party lines to coincide with geographical 
lines ; and intelligent foreign writers have pointed to 
this deadly sectional hate, thus engendered, as the 
hidden rock on which our glorious institutions are 
yet to founder. 

Will these reckless political leaders succeed in car- 
rying out their selfish schemes ? 

Is there common sense enough in the country to 



CENTENNIAL SENTIMENTS. I5I 

see throLigli the transparent purposes of these poh'ti- 
cal brawlers ? 

Is there patriotism enough in tlie country to post- 
pone mere party triumph to the glory of the Re- 
united States ? 

As the once famous " Tom " Ritchie used to say, 
in days of yore, 

" N'oiis ve irons!' 



POSTSCRIPT CHAPTER FIRST. 
Hampton's campaign. 

The foregoing chapter was intended as the last of 
this " little book," but the financial embarrassments 
and business stagnation with our selected publisher 
were such, that our MS. has been lying quietly by us 
for more than a year, with the hope of finding a new 
one. 

In the meantime, history has been progressing, and 
startling events have developed material enough for 
a much larger book, and one of a very different char- 
acter. The centennial year has come and gone ; the 
exciting, critical and astounding Presidential election 
has given a new and unique chapter to American 
politics ; and the dark cloud, which has so long 
brooded over our State, has suddenly been rifted, and 
Wade Hampton is Governor of South Carolina ! 

These events, closely linked together as they have 
been, are on too magnificent a scale for mere human 
agency ; and South Carolina has had her " Thanks- 
giving Day " for this signal deliverance from more 
than Egyptian bondage. 

But we must proceed in some order; necessarily 
condensing into a brief abstract, subjects which may 
yet call forth volumes. 

The grand Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia 
was, in every sense, worthy of the occasion, and its 
success has surpassed the wildest dreams of its most 



HAMPTONS CAMPAIGN. I 53 

sanguine advocates. It has been national in its char- 
acter, and its influence for good will tell on all our 
people for all time to come. Representatives from 
every part of our broad land were brought into famil- 
iar contact for weeks and months together, and ties 
were renewed between those great families of States 
which had been weakened by long estrangement, and 
which the great civil war had well nigh sundered. As 
nearly ail the peoples of the earth were represented 
there, if not by personal representatives, yet by spec- 
imens of their skill, art and industries, the favorable 
occasion served greatly to enlarge our views ; to 
throw down and uproot the prejudices of centuries, 
and to show that, for cultivated skill, and enterprising 
industry, " the field is the world." 

The Presidential election, too, is much too grave a 
theme to be discussed in mere postscript chapters. 
Forty millions of people, distributed over thirty-eight 
different States, have as much interest in that wild 
contest, and its anomalous close, as the writer has, 
and he may well leave the discussion for abler pens, 
and wiser heads. His '* Voice," were he to attempt 
it, would be like the war-cry of the disembodied 
Greeks, at the approach of ^-Eneas. 

This much may be allowed : The " counting in " 
of President Hayes was the climax in a series of bold 
steps in political " progress," for which the party now 
in power has acquired a world-wide notoriety. 
Starting in i860 as a strictly sectional party, it de- 
fied and brought on a strictly sectional war. Since 
then it has exercised a sectional domination, on which 



154 ■ .A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

all the arbitrary powers of the Old World have gazed 
with amazement. It has created " States " out of 
ancient commonwealths, with constitutions framed at 
its own bidding, and utterly repugnant to those 
governed. It has manipulated the sacred right of 
the " ballot '' to suit its own purposes : and, now that 
this ballot has made one effort at independent action, 
this party unblushingly reverses its decisions, by 
changing sixteen electoral votes to secure a majority 
of one ! This, too, in the face of a popular majority 
of more than 300,000! As a single, original act of 
usurpation, its frightful er,ormity would have shocked 
the whole American people ; but being, as it is, the 
last of a series, it seems to be viewed in different 
lights, accorcfmg as the eye has or has not become 
accustomed to startling visions. 

There was one decision by this mighty vote, how- 
ever, which even this reckless party could not ignore. 
Throughout the length and breadth of the land it 
was proclaimed, in thunder tones, that this vile op- 
pression of American citizens MUST cease! Accord- 
ingly, one of the first acts of the Hayes Administration, 
was to withdraw Federal bayonets from the legislative 
halls of sovereign States, and thus make way for 
State officers, selected by their own people. Thus 
the Governors elected by the people were allowed to 
take their seats ; and Louisiana hailed her Nicholls as 
Chief Magistrate, and South Carolina, her Wade 
Hampton ! 

Mr. Hayes accomplished as much for us, in this 
deliverance, as Tilden himself could have done, and 



HAMPTONS CAMPAIGN. 155 

without that hue and cry which would have followed 
the action of a Democratic Executive. So that 
Hayes' inauguration has proved a blessing in disguise 
to our down-trodden people, and we certainly owe 
him no grudge. 

In a succinct resume of the memorable events of 
1876, it would delight the writer to linger long 
around Fort Moultrie, and give some of the details 
of the centennial celebration of South Carolina's 
Thermopylae. Here her y6>//r hundred, without hope 
of retreat, held their station in what General Charles 
Lee called a " slaughter-pen," fully determined to do 
or die. They did not suffer the fate of Sparta's tJiree 
hundred, but, on the contrary, gradually drove back 
the combined fleet of the ** Mistress of the Sea." 
Are they to be honored by their posterity the less on 
this account ? 

In the midst of desponding fears, and while groan- 
ing under grievous wrongs, the ancient city of Charles- 
ton put on her gala dress, and invited the whole coun- 
try to a participation in this glorying in the past. The 
whole State responded, because this great battle, 
fought before the " Declaration," was her first act of 
sovereignty and independence. Whatever her pres- 
ent sufferings and attempted degradation, the past 
was secure, and belonged to her and her children. 

Massachusetts responded nobly to the call, and 
from under the shadow of Bunker Hill monument, 
the choice of her military companies were sent to 
give the right hand of fellowship, and to participate 
fully in all the honors of the occasion. The grand 
8 



156 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

ovation given our military the year before, in sight 
of Bunker Hill, could not be reciprocated in our im- 
poverished condition, but the same spirit and the 
same heart were there. 

In the beautiful *' Moultrie Monument," which now 
adorns White Point Garden, in Charleston, and from 
her Battery looks out upon Sullivan's Island and old 
ocean, Boston has an undivided share — contributed 
with all the frankness of manly and Christian chiv- 
alry. 

But while these exhibitions of our higher and no- 
bler nature were thus called forth by memories of the 
past, the grim demon of hate, with all its relentless 
venom, was still abroad in the land. The cue given 
by politicians of the Blaine school, in Congress, was 
taken up by unscrupulous demagogues at widely sep- 
arated points, in the heated Presidential contest then 
going on. The " bloody shirt " was waved most 
furiously, particularly in the Northwest, and any 
Southern " outrage " was eagerly watched for to re- 
kindle the failing embers. The local incendiaries, 
particularly the emissaries of the carpet-bag authori- 
ties, were most active in fomenting a strife of races. 

In South Carolina they thought they had made a 
case, in what they were pleased to call the " Ham- 
burg Horror." Hamburg had once been a thriving 
business mart, but the railroad had sapped it of all 
prosperity. The buildings had been almost wholly 
abandoned by the whites, and, of course, they became 
the harbors for dissolute and vagrant negroes, and a 
sure retreat for escaped convicts from every part of 



Hampton's campaign. 157 

the State. The charter being still in existence, they 
had the whole municipal control. This was regarded 
by the Radical authorities as the most combustible 
point in the State, and arms were furnished, and em- 
issaries sent among them to stir up trouble. Need 
we go on to the sequel so often repeated among our 
long-suffering people ? 

Negroes, with arms in their hands, offer some in- 
sults and indignities to high-spirited young men. 
This, of course, is resented. Others flock to the 
scene, the lines are drawn, and the negroes retire to 
fortify themselves in an abandoned building. The 
first blood shed was that of a white man ; shot through 
the head, while standing with his comrades on the 
defensive. This highly exasperated the whole com- 
munity, far and near ; the more restless spirits were 
soon on the ground, and in the lead, and that night 
the negroes were made to suffer. 

The telegraph wires throughout the land were 
busy all the next day, in flashing this terrible '* out- 
rage " to the remotest hamlet. Fortunately for the 
cause of truth, the Circuit Court was soon after in 
session, and those who were denounced as the 
" bloody rioters," voluntarily gave themselves up, 
and demanded a trial, even before a Radical Judge. 
But it was no part of the programme to have the 
truth come out, so the whole matter was postponed 
to the next court, rt//^/ ///(i'/ never liave bceti tried! \j 

The next horror was the " Ellenton Riots," inspired 
by the same parties, and with the same objects in 
view. A white woman had been most inhumanly as- 



158 A VOICE FROM' SOUTH CAROLINA. 

saulted and maltreated by a negro, who was after- 
wards recognized by a little child. An arrest was, of 
course, attempted, but in due course of law, yet, such 
was the spirit then among the negroes, that they felt 
bound to aid one of their own number, against the 
whites, rl^ht or wronij. Small bodies uniting- became 
formidable in their proportions, and the organizations 
on the part of the whites, also greatly exceeded the 
usual "'posse cojiiitatus!' The feeling spread from 
neighborhood to neighborhood^ and from community 
to community, till that whole section of country 
seemed to be under arms. Just at the crisis, threat- 
ening an immediate conflict, a detachment of United 
States soldiers appeared on the ground, and by their 
intervention both sides agreed to disband and go 
home quietly. 

The parties arrested, on the part of the whites 
(there were none on the part of the blacks), also in- 
sisted on immediate trial, but they, too, were " post- 
poned." 

However, early in the present year, their case lias 
been heard. Corbin, familiarly called " Ku-Klux 
Korbin," the malignant United States District Attor- 
ney, had selected those he regarded as the worst cases 
on the list, had filled all the negro boarding-houses 
in Charleston, with an unlimited number of colored 
" witnesses," had manipulated the juries, both grand 
and petit ; and yet, after all his efforts in their trial, 
he could only secure a ''mistrial" — ^jury failing to 
agree ! 

Of course, that settled the whole matter, and we 



HAMPTONS CAMPAIGN. I 59 

will hear no more of the " EUenton Rioters/' in the 
courts at least. 

But these offsets from " Centennial fraternizing, '^ 
have led us to anticipate the regular course of events. 

Chamberlain was still playing his bold game of 
apparently conciliating a people whom he both hated 
and feared, and, at the same time, retaining the confi- 
dence and control of his own party. In the face of 
the election of Moses and Whipper to the bench, he 
had positively refused to commission them. About 
the same time, and in allusion to this election, he had 
said, in response to an invitation to the anniversary 
of the New England Society, in Charleston, that 
" the civilization of both the Huguenot and Cavalier 
was in imminent danger." . He had denounced Elliott, 
his colored Attorney-General, in the most bitter and 
opprobrious terms ; and, in those pen-pictures, in 
which he so eminently excels, was representing him- 
self as in the van of " Reform," sword drawn, and 
scabbard thrown away ! And our confidi ng people 
were disposed to believe him, attributing his villainr 
ous appointments and conniving with thieves and 
rogues, to necessity, '\x\ carrying out his policy ! Even in 
May, 1876, when the first Democratic Convention met, 
he had the trembling confidence of a majority of the 
members. Col. M. C. Butler and Gen. Gary, both from 
Edgefield, denounced him and his policy in no measured 
terms, and insisted, even then, on a " straightout " 
Democratic nomination for State officers ; but the 
majority were still hoping for " Reform," from the 
great High Priest of Radicalism. The summer passed 



l6o A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

over, the bomb-shells of *^ Hamburg " and '^Ellenton" 
had been exploded, the military grip on the State 
was becoming stronger and tighter, and all " Reform " 
was still in abeyance. The question now was, must 
the old State, Samson-like, in being both captive and 
blind, but " make sport ^' in the presence of her ex- 
ulting enemies, her own people aiding and abetting? 

A very different spirit prevailed in the Democratic 
Convention which re-assembled in August. The 
conviction was now forced upon her citizens, that if 
South Carolina was ever to be redeemed, it was to be 
done by her own people, under their own leaders. 
All temporizing and compromizing was then boldly 
thrown aside. The S ate was ranged squarely under the 
Democratic banner, and her own sons, well tried and 
true, were nominated for her highest offices. 

This, of course, was an immediate checkmate to 
Chamberlain's deep-laid and long-plotted scheme. 
But, in the emergency he was — Jiimsclf ! With a 
reckless boldness which his friends have dignified 
with the name of courage, but which seems more 
appropriate to the character of the detected assassin, 
he, at once, threw off the mask, and openly took his 
stand at the head of the worst elements of his party. 
At the Radical Convention, soon after assembled, he 
claimed and received their nomination, as their ac- 
knowledged chief, and, arm-in-arm with Elliott^ he 
deposited his vote, nominating the latter for re- 
election. 

The nomination of Gen. Wade Hampton for Gov^- 
ernpr, sent a thrill like electricity through the State, 



Hampton's campaign. i6i 

and revived hopes, long drooping and well nigh dead. 
The mere possibility of having this favorite son of 
the State at the head of affairs, stirred the hearts of 
all her people, and awakened emotions of patriotism 
long deemed crushed out. 

Hampton, himself, seemed inspired for the occasion. 
Busily occupied in efforts to recover something from 
the ruins of his once magnificent estates, he at once 
threw aside all private matters, and boldly entered 
upon a campaign unequalled in the annals of Repub- 
lics. All the State officers were arrayed against him, 
with their " election machinery " arranged and per- 
fected through a whole decade of unbroken success. 
The Radical State census called for more than 30,- 
000 majority of colored votes. The administration 
at Washington was ready and anxious to furnish all 
the resources of the army and navy to uphold this 
nondescript government, in order to secure the elec- 
toral vote of the State, in the exceedingly close con- 
test, then going on, for President of the United 
States. 

This state of things would have appalled any per- 
sonal aspirant for office ; but Hampton seems, from 
the first, to have thrown aside the personal, and to 
have regarded himself as the embodiment of the 
"Forlorn Hope" of South Carolina. All public 
gatherings, all strife of words, and particularly all 
public speaking were averse to his natural tastes; 
but, with a self-sacrifice worthy the cause, he plunged 
headlong into the midst of all these, and with a con- 
sciousness that there could be no respite till the end. 



I 62 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Beginning in the mountains, where the news of 
his nomination first reached him, he made appoint- 
ments to meet his constituents, successively, at all 
the important points of the State, from the mountains 
to the sea-board. His opponents, and particularly 
Chamberlain, were invited to meet him at all these 
places, with an assurance of protection and safe con- 
duct. These appointments left but few intervals for 
" rest days," through the whole campaign, and, what 
is very remarkable, he never failed to be present, 
and, personally, to address his fellow-citizens. The 
very elements seemed to favor him, for no occasion 
was marred by foul weather, and all the rains occurred 
in the intervals of his appointments. 

Within sight of those everlasting hills, which look 
down upon the memorable battle-fields of " Cow- 
pens " and " King's Mountain," he first raised his 
clarion voice for Redemption and Home Rule. An 
enthusiasm was at once enkindled, which drew out 
unprecedented crowds to his first appointment. It 
was feared that this unanimity would be confined to 
that section of the State — always Democratic, and, 
comparatively exempt from the heel of the oppres- 
sor. But as Hampton approaclied the middle country, 
the crowds became even greater, and the enthusiasm 
almost reached delirium. Each county had one or 
more of its " Hampton's Days," and each of these 
'* days " vied with its predecessor, not only in num- 
bers, but in decorations and pageantry. 

There was one potent influence in inspiring and 
urging forward this wild excitement and jubilant 



Hampton's campaign. 163 

greeting, which Hampton never failed to acknowledge 
pubhcly, and with choking gratitude, — and that was 
the zvonien of the State ! They prepared the -way for 
liim, wherever he went, for he found them everywhere 
the same. However gloomy and despondent their 
husbands and brothers may have become, they had 
never " despaired of the Republic," but were as un- 
yielding and defiant, even in the darkest days of 
oppression, as when the Confederate flag waved over 
Fort Sumter, or on the hill-tops of Bull Run. The 
candid historian must record, that if it had not been 
t''or the women of the State, her early redemption 
from Radical rule would have been impossible, for 
Hampton himself has said as much. 

It was the privilege of the writer to attend several 
of these " ovations," and he can assert that nothing 
like them had ever been witnessed in this State, even 
in her palmiest days. Before the war, she had always 
been so unanimous in Federal politics, that political 
campaigns were comparatively unknown, and no 
mere local contest had ever so stirred the public 
heait. 

But where was Chamberlain all this while ? Invi- 
tation after invitation had appeared in the papers, 
calling upon him to meet Hampton at some of these 
places most convenient to him, but he clung to his 
Executive hole in Columbia, sending forth his meshes, 
spider-like, all over the State, to entrap a hated 
people. 

To thwart the growing enthusiasm, he naturally 
looked to the bayonet, which had placed him where 



164 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

he was, and still retained him there. He was most 
ardently desirous to have martial law proclaimed, but 
that was in the power of the'President, and from the 
course of the Federal canvass, then eoincT on. the 
President himself would have to plead a strong case. 
To force some such emergency, his counsellors inau- 
gurated the "strike" among the half civilized blacks 
of the low country rice-fields, but under the " Peace 
Policy," inculcated by Hampton, all these efforts 
failed. The only effect was to damage a few indi- 
viduals, and to bring down untold want and suffering 
on these deluded creatures themselves. 

He next thought of striking at the " chivalry" of 
the State, by calling for the disbanding and disarming 
of all the rifle clubs, and volunteer military orgniza- 
tions throught the State, By specious representations 
made to Washington, he did induce the President to 
issue a Proclamation to that effect. 

It so happened that the writer was present when 
this was first announced to Hampton, which was on 
the great " Hampton Day," at Sumtei" C. H. The 
speaking was all over, and the General was quietly 
dining with a private party, at a friend's house. Sitting 
nearest his hostess, he was interrupted in the midst 
of a remark to her by the " telegraph boy," handing 
him a dispatch, with the request that he would read 
it at once. He did so, and quietly folding the note, 
he finished the remark he was makinsf to Mrs. F., 
and no one would or did suppose, from his manner, 
that there was anything of importance in its contents. 
But when Col. Haskel requested him to throw it 



Hampton's campaign. 165 

across the table, one glance from him brought out 
the exclamation : " Here it is, true enough ! The 
President has disbanded all the white companies, and 
threatens us with martial law !'' The countenances 
around the table wore very different expressions from 
Hampton's schooled features, and we could not but 
admire that Roman self-control so often manifested 
lately. 

By his advice^ which was as effective as a ukase 
from the Court of St. Petersburg, among the Rus- 
sians, this order from Washington was promptly 
obeyed, and fully carried out, and Mr. Chamberlain 
was again checkmated. 

It was an anomaly to see a late dashing " Lieutenant- 
General of Cavalry" so suddenly and so sternly act- 
ing the apostle of William Penn, in his peace policy; 
but South Carolina, at that time, witnessed that met- 
amorphosis. And she, to-day, rejoices in a victory, 
unequalled in her annals, achieved by legal methods 
alone, and by tactics unqualifiedly Quaker. The 
truth is, there was not then, nor had there ever been 
in South Carolina, any one man who could have car- 
ried out that policy but General Hampton himself. 
Even John C. Calhoun would have signally failed. 
Hampton's war record had caused him to be regard- 
ed as the personification of the chivalry and manhood 
of the State, and when he counselled yielding, even 
General Gary had to subside. 



POSTSCRIPT CHAPTER SECOND. 

REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. 

The election came on, at last, and Chamberlain had 
his United States soldiers and marshals distributed 
throughout the State, to his entire satisfaction. But 
l/io the surprise of friend and foe. Wade Hampton had 
^ a clear majority of over twelve hundred votes ! In 
the strong Radical precincts in Charleston, Colleton 
and Beaufort Countie<=i, such untold frauds had been 
practiced that the most sanguine had begun to de- 
spair of success ; and when it was found that the 
election was safe, in spite of all these frauds, ** the 
people rejoiced with exceeding great joy." But the 
shout of triumph soon subsided, when that omnipo- 
tent Radical '* Returning Board" was summoned to 
"canvass the votes." By the simple device of 
** counting out " the two counties of Laurens and 
Edgefield, which had gone Democratic by large ma- 
jorities, it was attempted to reverse the result, and 
** count in " Chamberlain and his crew. 

In vain did the Supreme Court attempt to restrain 
this Board, in its usurpation of power. After several 
attempts on the part of the court had been success- 
fully foiled, an order of court was finally passed for 
them to bring all the election returns into court the 
next day. But that night, under the inspiration of 
Corbin, the Board formally declared Chamberlain and 



>, 



REDEMPTION AND HOxME RULE. 1 6/ 

crew elected, issued the usual certificates, and then 
adjourned sine die. 

A short time afterwards the court had them allw 
arrested, imposed a fine of *$ 1,500 each, and had them 
all committed to jail, in default of payment. But the 
notorious Judge Bond, of the U. S. Circuit Court, 
was soon on the ground, summoned by telegraph. 
He at once released them on writs of -habeas corpus, 
at Chambers, and, not long afterwards, made their 
discharge final ! 

An expression had escaped from Hampton's heart, 
through his unguarded lips, which served to quiet all 
apprehensions as to the result. It was to the follow- 
ing effect: *' The people of South Carolina have 
elected me Governor, and, by the Eternal God, I in- 
tend to be their Governor ! " 

The time for the convening of the Legislature now 
drew nigh, and all eyes were turned to Columbia to 
see which party would secure the supremacy. The 
same vote which had made Hampton Governor, se- 
cured a majority of the House of Representatives. 
There were senators enough holding over to give 
that body to the Radicals by a small majority. 

A sliort time before the day of meeting. Chamber- 
lain had procured an order from President Grant to 
have a Company of United States Infantry quartered 
in the State House. This was effected at midnight, 
and the next morning, the citizens found access to 
the halls of their fathers, debarred by armed senti- 
nels wearing the United States uniform, and posted 
at every door ! 



1 68 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

On the day of the meeting of the Legislature, a 
large crowd of every color and condition was assem- 
bled on the open area, in front of the State House, 
and even the broad steps leading to the main door- 
way were crowded. The officer in command had 
announced that only those bearing certificates from 
the Returning Board could be admitted. The ex- 
citement became intense, until Hampton himself ap- 
peared on the steps. He had just been refused 
admittance, but was as calm as a summer's morning. 
He only uttered a few words, to the effect that the 
handful of United States soldiers before them repre- 
sented a power it would be madness to resist. That 
he felt tliat place was not a proper one for him, and, 
therefore, was going to his office. His advice was, 
for all who felt as he did, to follow him down the 
street. As he advanced to the gate, the whole crowd 
silently melted away into a solemn procession, fol- 
lowing his lead. 

His Excellency's *' office," was a suit of two rooms 
over one of the stores on Main street, and furnished 
as his room on the Campus had been in College days, 
excepting the cot bedstead. 

The members elect had all been admitted into their 
hall, excepting the two delegations from Laurens 
and Edgefield. The Radical members were sworn 
in, and, although without a quorum, proceeded to 
//organize by the election of Mackey, of Charleston, 
as Speaker. The Democratic members then with- 
drew to " Carolina Hall,'' and organized the true 
House of Representatives, by electing Gen. Wallace, 



REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. 1 69 

of Union, their speaker. There were several defec- 
tions from the Mackey to the Wallace House, which 
soon secured the Constitutional quorum, beyond all 
cavil. As the admissions into the State House had 
gradually become more relaxed, Gen. Wallace pri- 
vately informed his members that he intended to 
occupy the Speaker's chair, at the Capital, on the 
next adjournment of the Mackey House. This was 
quietly effected, Wallace occupying the chair, with 
all his members present. At his regular time, Mackey 
came in and demanded the chair, and, on being per- 
emptorily refused, he ordered a common chair to be 
placed as near to Wallace as the impenetrability of 
matter would permit. Here he took his seat, and 
calljd his pretended House to order. Then was 
presented the unprecedented spectacle of two Houses 
of Representatives, organized and sitting in the same 
hall. The Radical House, almost exclusively colored, 
occupied the left of the Speaker, and the Democrats 
the right, separated by the broad middle aisle. 

It was somewhat confusing to a spectator to listen 
to two calls for the " yeas and nays," going on sim- 
ultaneously ; but more so in a double debate, when 
there was a greater contest of lungs than brains. Yet 
all this continued for more than four days — day and 
night. The session of each succeeding day was re- 
sumed precisely at the moment of adjournment at the 
preceding day, keeping each speaker in his seat con- 
tinuously. It was a question of endurance only ; for, . 
with the United States soldiers down stairs, and 
within easy call, there was no idea oi force. 



I/O A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

It was hard service for these gentlemen to be thus 
shut up with these unwashed " wards of the nation," 
sending forth a stifling, native perfume, when the 
piercing cold without prevented necessary ventilation. 
Sleeping, too, on dirty floors, each with a single blan- 
ket, would read well in a story of martyrdom, but 
their heads and frames ached nevertheless. In all 
this the negroes had the great advantage, as they 
were just in their element. The perfume served but 
to stimulate tliem to song and jollity, and a blanket 
big enough to cover the head was all that each need- 
ed. On the other hand, in eating and drinking, the 
whites had the incalculable advantage. While Sambo 
was munching his hard tack and cheese, he had to 
gaze wishfully on baskets and boxes of fruit and 
tempting viands furnished the other side, in profusion, 
by the rebel-sympathizing merchants of Columbia and 
Charleston. 

Even then, accessions were made to the Wallace 
House, and, as each sable orator would make his 
speech, take the qualifying oath, and direct his steps 
to the '' Right," he would be warmly welcomed to a 
goodly pile of apples, oranges, bananas, etc. After 
four days of such experience as this. Speaker Wallace 
was privately informed that an effort would be made 
to eject the delegations from Laurens and Edgefield, 
and, if resistance was made, the officer in command 
of the United States troops had orders to interfere in 
force. As this would brino- on a direct collision with 
the General Government, of course, the question was 
settled very promptly. On motion, the W^allace 



REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. I/I 

House adjourned to their former hall, and this unique 
contest was ended, without bloodshed. 

Not long after this, Chamberlain was "inaugurat- 
ed " before a constitutional Senate and usurping 
House; Hampton also took the oath of office, in the 
open air^ and in presence of the constitutional House,, 
a minority of the Senate, and a large concourse of 
distinguished citizens. Soon after this, the whole 
Legislature, real and fictitious, adjourned sine die. 

Hampton, after his inauguration, made a demand 
on Chamberlain for the Executive office, papers, etc., 
but as Chamberlain had this office, as well as his pri-- 
vate residence, strictly guarded by U. S. troops, he 
sent back a peremptory refusal. 

The Supreme Court had been reduced almost to a 
state of anarchy. The Chief Justice, still in doubt as 
to which would prove the winning side, in the Presi- 
dential contest, was vacillating and non-commital in 
all his official acts. In this condition of things, he 
was suddenly stricken down with paralysis, and soon 
afterwards was called to his final account. Associate 
Justice Willard had, from the first, set his face, like a 
flint, against all the revolutionary schemes and dis- 
honest practices of his party, and was firm and im- 
movable on the side of right and justice. Ass.-]\x?,- 
tice Wright, the colored representative of this body, 
was everything in turn, and nothing at last. Agree- 
ing to one decision when sober, and retracting when 
drunk, he has managed to forfeit all respect, even 
from the decent representatives of his own race. 

The result of all their decisions was the recogni- 



1/2 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

tion of the body presided over by General Wallace, 
as the true House of Representatives, and the legal 
election of the Democratic Executive officers. The 
election of Governor, was, of course, a question for 
the Legislature, and this had already been practically 
decided. 

Hope was reviving in every faithful bosom, and the 
day of redemption seemed really drawing near. The 
old State pride began, once more to develop, as the 
prospect grew brighter of South Carolina again 
resuming her position among her sister States But 
this feeling was cruelly checked by the last official 
act of President Grant in her case, and a fitting climax 
to all his previous steps in military tyranny. 

What was left of the chartered military companies 
of Charleston, under the lead of the " Washington 
Light Infantry " had agreed to celebrate Washing- 
ton's Birthday (22d February), with all the show of 
military under their control. To aid in this patriotic 
demonstration the choice volunteer companies of Sa- 
vannah and Augusta were invited to attend and par- 
ticipate. But, Chamberlain telegraphed the startling 
intelligence to Washington City, and forthwith, there 
came an order from the War Department, perempto- 
rily forbidding any such military display. 

Comment is unnecessary. 

Soon after followed the " counting in " of President 
Hayes, and his inauguration, which " followed hard 
upon." But those United States bayonets were still 
in the State House at Columbia, and Chamberlain 
was still daily riding to and from the Executive office. 



REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. 173 

in his close carriage. After weeks of suspense had 
run into montlis, to the surprise of everybody, Hamp- 
ton and Chamberlain were both invited to personal 
interviews with the President, and at the same time. 

What passed at these interviews, which were sepa- 
rate, are State secrets, but what the public could 
ascertain was cheerinp- enough to the friends oi 
Hampton. His journey to and from Washington 
was almost a continued ovation at the railroad sta- 
tions aloncf his route, and at Washin^jton he was 
treated with the most distinsfuished consideration. 
His appearance, on his return, in spite of all his 
prudent reticence, showed that he now felt himself to 
be the master of the situation. Chamberlain, on the 
other hand, paid his visit " unknowing and unknown,'' 
as to the outside world, and came back with a head 
of the bulrush order. 

Time alone will bring to light, if ever it is done, all 
that transpired at Washington during these weeks of 
intense anxiety. We could learn that several Con- 
gressmen from the South had ardently espoused the 
cause of Hampton, and were exerting all the influ- 
ence they had in his behalf Particularly Senator 
Gordon, of Georgia, who had, with all his heart, 
thrown himself into the contest, and was moving all 
in his power in behalf of South Carolina. No native 
son of hers could have shown a more lively interest 
in her redemption, and his eminent and self sacrificing 
services will always be treasured in the memory of a 
grateful people. 

Not long after Hampton's visit there was issued^ 



174 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

from the War Department, an order for the United 
States Infantry, then in charge of the State House, 
by noon of a certain day to inarch out, and resume 
their old quarters at the garrison post. This was 
all — but it was all we wanted. That little paper of 
some i<^n lines, ordering about two dozen United 
States enlisted men to march about half a mile, pro- 
duced a mighty revolution, as peaceful as it was 
complete, and changed the status of our ancient 
Commonwealth for all time to come ! The Federal 
Bayonet was withdrawn from her throat, and she at 
once arose from her dust and ashes, and is, even now, 
putting on her beautiful garments. The whole mon- 
strous fabric of radicalism, which the usurpers proud- 
ly thought securely pinned together by bayonets, for 
this generation at least, in a nio?nent came toppling 
about their ears. The effect produced on this motley 
crowd was amusing enough to those who saw that 
their escape was impossible. Homeless and keeper- 
less, they could find no shelter from the wrath to 
come ! 

A second demand from Hampton now promptly 
brought about the humiliating surrender of Executive 
office, archives, etc., and Chamberlain was soon after 
wholly absorbed in boxing up his elegant household 
furniture, for the steamer in Charleston. A day or 
two afterwards he followed these boxes himself — but 
he ivill return. As a culprit, he will yet have to stand 
before that altar of Justice he has dared so long and 
so often to defile with his unhallowed touch ; and 
answer to charges of high crimes and misdemeanors, 



REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. 1 75 

embracing conspiracies for purposes of fraud and 
larceny. 

It required but little effort now for the incumbents 
to get possession of all the State offices, and soon the 
State was fully equipped for her new departure. 

After proclaiming a day of solemn Thanksgiving 
to Almighty God (which was generally and heartily 
observed), the Governor summoned the Legislature 
together in solemn form. 

This time the inside of the State House presented 
a very different appearance from that of the preceding 
winter. After weeks of convict labor expended on 
her halls, they began to look as if fitted up for the 
reception of gentlemen. 

In organizing, there was a little ripple of excite- 
ment in the Senate chamber, which was soon calmed 
by the wise course and admirable presence of mind 
of Col. W. D. Simpson, the new Lieutenant-Governor. 
His predecessor, Gleaves, had requested, as a special 
fiivor, to be allowed to call the Senate to order, and 
then, from his seat as President, to lay aside all 
badges of office and retire gracefully. This was done ; 
but a motion was then made for the formal inaugura- 
tion of the new Lieutenant-Governor. Colonel 
Simpson saw that this would ignore all his past offi- 
cial acts, and, stepping forward he declared that no 
power on earth could force him to take the oath of 
office a second time. Then, without waiting for the 
formality of being conducted there by a committee, 
he boldly marched up and into the President's chair. 
There was some confusion, but by a few skillful rul- 



176 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

ings on points of order, he soon quieted matters, and 
had all the wheels of legislation running smoothly, 
before the gaping crowd around him could realize 
the b r i 1 1 i a n t ^^/^Z* de- etat. 

In the Hall of Representatives, the old roll of the 
Wallace House was called, to the consternation of 
the Mackeyites, who found themselves occupying 
their former seats, but, this time as mere spectators. 
After the usual preliminary measures were acted on, 
still without noticing these uneasy legislators, the 
House quietly adjourned. After they had been suf- 
ficiently tried in this way, a resolution was introduced 
to admit the delegations from certain counties, on 
their purging themselves of contempt for the true 
House of Representatives, at its preceding session, 
by apologies the most humble ; and earnestly begging 
pardon for the same. This way an edifying spectacle 
for the whole State, and well calculated to benefit the 
penitents themselves ; though it was well known that 
their acquiescence was occasioned more by appeals 
;from their pockets, than from their consciences. 

Hamilton, a very shrewd and intelligent negro, 
from Beaufort, had been the first, publicly, to go over 
to the Wallace House the winter before. On this 
occasion he was in his glory, and his appeals for the 
" mourners to come forward, and seek pardon," were 
ludicrous enough. In some of the more obdurate 
cases, he would stand up with them in the aisle, as if 
he was their sponsor ; while on others, he would imi- 
tate " the laying on of hands." 

The whole delegation from Charleston, nineteen in 



REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. IJJ 

number, were permanently excluded, on the ground 
o{ fraud in their election ; and that old city has sent 
a full Democratic ticket in their stead — good men 
and true, — and some of her ablest and longest tried 
citizens. 

On one ground and another, the seats of certain 
senators were vacated, and these were promptly filled 
by Democrats — the Radicals, as in Charleston, mak- 
ing no nominations. At last, the sudden disappear- 
ance of the notorious Whittemore, from that body^ 
gave the Democrats the majority there also. Whitte- 
more's seat was declared vacant, and a Democrat has 
been elected in his place also. 

The most important action of this session of the 
Legislature, was the appointment of two able com- 
mittees to sit during the recess. The first committee: 
is to investio^ate the financial condition of the State, 
particularly her bonded debts. The second is to in- 
quire into and bring to trial, all frauds, high crimes, 
and misdemeanors perpetrated against the State,, 
under Radical rule.* 

It was this last measure that frightened Whittemore- 
off, and has caused many others to depart abruptly. 
But it is no part of the committee's duties or purpose 
to drive the Radicals from the State. So far from it,, 
they are sending to the highways and hedges, and 
compelling them to come in. Their proceedings, of 
course, are private; but, from their success, thus 
far, and from the character of the tribunal, there is 
no doubt that their work will be thoroughly done. 

* See Appendix. 



1/8 A VOJCE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Our narrative now closes in the midst of this most 
stupendous revolution, and one brought about by- 
means, apparently, so inadequate. It was the result 
of prudence, caution and long-suffering patience — 
qualities in which South Carolina has but recently 
been indoctrinated — all guided by profound wisdom. 

The grand result has given Hampton a name above | 
every other name in the State, and has enthroned him 
in the hearts of all his true countrymen, and country- i 
women too. But say to him, " Never had a peo- 
ple such a chief to follow ! " and his answer would be 
promptly returned, '" Never had a chief such a people 
to hold up his hands, and urge him forward i/i liis 
02V n way ! " 

Neither is his fame confined by State lines. Such 
patriotism and statesmanship as he has recently illus- 
trated, will captivate and impress all who can appre- 
ciate such rare qualities, always and everywhere. 

Take the following tribute from Senator Bayard, 
than whom none stands higher, in this latitude, among 
living American statesmen. In an address delivered 
at Pimlico, he says : 

" Few figures stand forth upon the canvas of histo- 
ry so eminent as that of John Hampden, the English 
country gentleman, whose monument records that, 
* with <jreat courao-e and consummate abilities, he be- 
gan a noble opposition to an arbitrary court, in de- 
fence of the liberties of his country; supported them 
in Parliament, and died for them on the field,! ' 

" And his compeer in virtue and ability, separated 
in date, by more than two centuries, but who will 



REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. I79 

ever rank with him in history ; whose constancy and 
sound judgment, whose intrepidity and self-control, 
have proved such a shield and buckler to his people, 
when beset by difficulties and dangers greater than 
even Hampden confronted, is to-day, supplied in our 
own land, in Wade Hampton, the planter of South 
Carolina ! 

" flampden and Hampton ! The names blend in 
sound, and in future time, 

* Far on in summers that we shall not see,' 

they will be coupled in the lessons taught to inspire 
the youth of all lands with patriotic endeavor.'^ 

But it would be folly to claini this great success as 
the work of any one man. It can safely be asserted 
that from the inception of the political campaign to 
its glorious consummation, in the withdrawal of the 
United States troops from the State House, not one 
material blunder was made ! This is more than can 
be attributed to any one mortal man, and Governor 
Hampton himself would cheerfully furnish a list of 
names, which would make an additional chapter nec- 
essary to this little book. 

The unique and unprecedented contest between 
the " Wallace" and the " Mackey" House of Repre- 
sentatives called for qualifications of a rare order in 
the presiding officer, and Gen. W. H. Wallace proved 
himself to be the right man, in the -right place. Had 
he proved weak, vacillating or even compromising, 
the whole scheme of reformation in the government 
might have failed. Though the body over which he 
presided was composed mainly of young and inexpe- 

9 



l80 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

rienced members, )^et his cool head, steady nerve, 
and iron will, held them in constant check, and 
shaped their course with admirable tact. Those who 
witnessed the confusion, the turmoil and the provo- 
cations of those dark days, and nights, too, were at a 
loss which to admire most, the calm dignity with 
which these were overruled, or the consummate skill 
which led to final and complete success. 

Probably a still more critical, though far less pro- 
tracted task was assigned to the Lieutenant-Govern- 
or — elect. The State had known Col. W. D. Simpson 
as a highly gifted and very popular " citizen of the old 
school," but as wholly untried in parliamentary tac- 
tics. The Radical Senate — from the first recognized 
as legal by both parties — was about to begin its work 
at the called session. Gleaves, Chamberlain's Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, was easily induced to resign his 
seat as ex-officio President, on a pledge of immu- 
nity for some notorious penitentiary offence. But to 
the Senate, Col. Simpson was only the "so-called" 
Lieutenant-Governor. While they were wrangling 
over the difficulty in excited debate, mainly on the 
point of his taking the oath of office a second time. 
Governor Simpson, by one of those inspirations 
which so rarely occur in a life-time, at once settled 
the question by stepping up to the vacant chair and 
taking his seat, while boldly announcing that no hu- 
man power could force him to repeat that oath. The 
mere magnetism of his presence and bearingseemed 
at once to bring order out of confusion. At any 
rate this was all that appeared to the outsiders ; but 



REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. l8l 

there must have been much manipulating and adroit 
management to render this bold step so completely 
successful. This was the first official act of Governor 
Simpson ; but before this, and all through the cam- 
paign, he had devoted his energies and all his powers 
to the cause so near his heart. In the Legislative 
struggle, which was really the crisis of the contest, 
Governor Hampton always found in Simpson and 
Wallace the Aaron and Hur, ever ready to hold up 
his hands when almost overwhelmed by the gravest 
responsibilities. 

The writer can bear testimony to the indefatigable, 
self-sacrificing labors of the " Executive Committees" 
of the several counties. In addition to greater labor 
of the same character, the " State Executive Com- 
mittee," at Columbia, were pre-eminently of the Gov- 
ernor's Council. Among these the noble figure of 
Col. A. C. Haskell stands very prominent. From his 
enviable character for spotless integrity and chivalric 
honor, he enjoyed the unstinted confidence of his 
chief, and the highest esteem of his fellow-laborers. 
His self-devotion to the great cause was only second 
to that of Hampton himself When he called on the 
auxiliary clubs for additional work, he set them the 
example by working himself When he advised 
Gen. Wallace to seize the Speaker's chair, he took 
his little blanket and slept on the dirty floor with the 
members. And at the following " called session," 
when the time for rewards had come, he declined 
every nomination for political position tendered him 
by his grateful fellow-citizens. He has won his coun- 



l82 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

try's plaudit, as her chevalier sans pcur et sans re- 
prod I e ! 

But we must never forget that the great contest 
was, mainly, a legal one, and the true champion in 
that fight was the gallant and gifted Gen. James Con- 
ner, of Charleston. Quietly, but with admirable tact, 
he prompted most of those moves on the political 
chess-board which so effectually checked all the skill 
and finesse of Chamberlain, the adroit but unprin- 
cipled Radical leader. The magnificent checkmate 
of 1876 having cleared the way before him, he is 
seeking, with rare modesty, to withdraw from public 
gaze into the shades of private life. But his State 
has appreciated his ability and devotion, and in her 
time of need will know where to look. 

Gen. Johnson Hagood was another in this small 
group of constant and confidential counsellors, whose 
views exerted a controlling influence on measures of 
vital importance. Generally silent and unobtrusive, 
he was always found prompt and efficient when the 
occasion called for him. His opinions were eminently 
characterized by wisdom — if that is shown in clear- 
ness of perception, vigor as well as nice discrimina- 
tion in judgment, coolness and firmness in deciding, 
and. unflinching nerve in execution. Gov. Hampton 
was not long in recognizing these high traits, and his 
counsel was sought when many an older and more 
eloquent aspirant for leadership was passed, by. Like 
true bullion, he was found to shine but the brighter 
and clearer the harder the attrition, while the glitter 
and tinsel of some of his more wordy contemporaries 



REDEMPTION AND HOME RULE. 1 83 

perished with the occasion which called for them. 
The effects of many a wise measure, suggested and 
enforced by him, will be felt in the future history of 
his loved State long after his body will have moul- 
dered into her kindred dust. 

But the inception of the bold policy of " Straight- 
out" Democratic nominations, and of openly throw- 
ing down the gauntlet to Radicalism in South Caro- 
lina, was pre-eminently due to Colonel M. C. Butler 
and General M. W. Gary, both of Edgefield. These 
gallant spirits not only made the first move, as we 
have show^n, but they fought it through to triumphant 
adoption ; and this, too, under discouragements which 
would have appalled most men. It was on their mo- 
tion that Hampton was first called to the front ; then 
gracefully falling back into the ranks, they have done 
yeoman service, earnest and unremitting, till victory 
perched on the glorious banner. 

All honor, then, to these sons of Old Carolina — 
true champions of her noble women — who even in 
her darkest day, " did not despair of the Republic ! " 

But why extend this list? These are mentioned 
because a grateful people have already marked their 
names for posterity, and our narrative would be in- 
complete, without some tribute, however humble, to 
their well-earned fame. 

And now, our task is done ! Contrasting the first 
with the last chapter, who does not exclaim, "What 
hath God wrought ! " Then, a conquered territory 
ruled by her former slaves ; now, revived, as by the 
breath of the Almighty, into a glorious common- 



184 A VOICE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 

wealtli — the same old State, with a proud record of 
nearly one hundred years ! To-day she proudly 
leans on that hero-patriot, her own offspring-, who has 
so gloriously " fought the good fight." 

She smiles upon all her battle-scarred sons, who 
proudly love her with all the devotion of" Auld Lang 

Syne." 

And she clasps to her bosom her rejoicing daugh- 
ters, who had watched around her couch of suffering 
with such undying faith, and had scornfully resented 
all intrusion on the part of her heartless oppressors. 

To the world, she once more proudly holds forth 
her time honored escutcheon — re-baptized with the 
blood of some of her bravest and best. 
" Aiiiuiis opibiisqiie parati!^ 
*' Dinn spiro^ spero^ 



APPENDIX. 



To render this faint outline of Reconstruction in 
South Carolina more distinct, and to show more fully 
the facts, now clearly established, which have formed 
the basis of some important statements in the fore- 
going pages, it is the purpose of the author to cull 
freely from official investigations already published 
by legislative authority. A " Joint Investigating 
Committee on Public Frauds," was appointed by the 
Senate and House of Representatives, and their 
labors, protracted through many months in iS/Z-'/S, 
resulted in the compilation of a formidable " Legisla- 
tive Document" of 937 pages, a parallel to which 
can onlv be imasfined in the lost records of Sodom 
and Gomorrah. As life is too short for every one to 
read everything, the size of the volume will, doubt- 
less, deter many who are desirous of information ; 
and a condensed statement of the most important 
topics may be very acceptable to these, and its great- 
ly diminished proportions may attract the attention 
of the general reader. 

The Committee give, very clearly, the beginnings 
of these frauds, and the facilis descensus is strikingly 
illustrated under the first head of 

SUPPLIES. 

Here, the legitimate expenses for stationery, post- 
age stamps, etc., would be some ten dollars for each 
member for the session. But these improvised states- 
men needed other help ; and, among the first, are 



1 86 APPENDIX. 

found, for each member, one Webster's unabridged 
dictionary, one calendar inkstand (^25), one gold pen 
(;^io), and the privilege of using the Western Union 
Telegraph at the expense of the State. (The various 
railroad companies had already granted them free 
passes, for purposes of their own). Even these com- 
paratively moderate indulgences would swell these 
accounts out of all proportion, and it was desirable 
to cover them from the too eager gaze of the tax- 
payer. It became necessary, therefore, to manipulate 
the Committee on Contingent Accounts ; and, where 
all were equally implicated, this was easily effected. 
After their report on some honest claims, would fol- 
low the ominous words, "and others/' or, "sundries 
and others, '^ which would cover any amount of fraud. 
The Clerks of both Houses testified that bills for re- 
freshments for committee rooms, groceries, clocks, 
horses and carriages, dry goods, furniture of every 
description, and miscellaneous articles of merchan- 
dise, were freely passed in this way. The contest 
was, which member should appropriate the most to 
his individual benefit. No wonder that the Commit- 
tee would find, in the Treasurer's office, vouchers to 
show that, in a single session, three hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars were expended under the head 
of " supplies, sundries, and incidental expenses." 
Before the war, the whole State Government did not 
cost four hundred thousand dollars, all told. 

(Page 8). Of this ;^35O,O00, ;^ 125,000 was expended 
for "refreshments," including the finest wines, liquors 
and cigars. In fact, this Committee on Contingen- 



I 



APPENDIX. 187 

cies had one of the largest committee rooms fitted up 
as a first-class restaurant, open from 8 o'clock, A. M., 
till 2 o'clock, A. M. of the following day, Sundays 
included. To all members, whether Radicals or 
Democrats, these refreshments were as free as the 
air they breathed ; and the wonder is, that ^125,000 
could satisfy these hungering and thirsting statesmen 
for a whole session, particularly as they had the 
privilege of inviting State officials, judges, editors, 
reporters, and citizens generally. 

The next highest item under the head of "supplies" 
is " furniture," and the Committee report (page 14) 
that not less than ^200,000 had been paid out in four 
years, on this account alone. Dealers in Columbia 
testified to furnishing every committee room in the 
State House, and in the city, besides forty bed-rooms, 
every session. It was thus shown that these articles 
were taken home, on adjournment, as perquisites of 
the members. These dealers estimate that all the 
furniture in the State House, and in all the public 
offices, would not exceed, at original cost, ^17,715 \ 
thus leaving ;^ 1 82,285 in four years, or more than 
;^45,000 per annum, unaccounted for. Was it to be 
wondered at, that members who received $6 per 
diem, could yet afford elegant furniture for their 
rooms, Brussels carpets for their floors, and to re- 
cline on oriental spring and sponge mattresses — and 
all these to be renewed each successive session ? 

To show how readily a taste for luxuries can be 
cultivated at the expense of principle, the committee 
give the following contract : 



1 88 APPENDIX. 

1869-70. — ;^5 clocks, 40 cent spittoons, ^4 benches, 
straw beds, ^i chairs, ;^4pine tables, 25-cent hat-pegs, 
;^8 desks, ^10 office desks, 50-cent coat-hooks, ^4 
looking-glasses, $2 window-curtains, ^5 cornices, clay- 
pipes, cheap whiskey. 

i87i-'72. — ^600 clocks, ^8 cuspadors, ;^200 crimson 
plush sofas, sponge mattresses and oriental pillows, 
^60 crimson plush gothic chairs, ^80 library tables, 
^30 hat-racks, ^50 desks, $Zo to ^175 office desks, 
;^roo wardrobes, ^600 mirrors, ^600 brocaded curtains, 
lambrequins, etc., ^80 walnut and gilt cornices, finest 
Havana cigars, champagne. (Page 24). 

Rents, jewelry and stationery are the remaining 
items under this head of " supplies," but we will spare 
the reader the sickening details, simply remarking 
that the rents would, each year, have more than 
bought the fee-simple of the property rented ; that 
the jewelry was enough to have decked the wives 
of certain sable statesmen like lier of " Bambury 
Cross," even if her rings and bells had been pure 
gold ; and the ^68,000 per session for stationery 
would have abundantly supplied all the un-recon- 
structed States, for more than a year, in those literary 
necessities. 

A place on this Committee on Contingencies was 
eagerly sought after, as it was a very sure bonanza. 

They required all the bills to be itemized, but not 
added up ; as they had their own rule for '' addition, 
division, and silence." To these items they would 
prefix figures, whether tens, hundreds, or thousands ; 
the value of the figure, as well as the number of pre- 
fixes, depending on the exigences of the occasion. 



APPENDIX. 189 

PUBLIC PRINTING. 

We come now to more gigantic frauds, requirin"- 
a more extended sphere, and covering government 
officials, their partisan press, and the party leaders 
all over the State, as well as both branches of the 
Legislature. For years, under the " State Printer " 
system, whenever any large appropriation was want- 
ed, the margin was extended sufficiently to cover all 
bribes and gratifications necessary to secure the re- 
quisite majority. To show the colossal proportions 
into which this system of "bribery and gratifications " 
had expanded, the Committee report that ;$98,500 
was paid to secure the passage of one printing bill, 
in one session. (Page 218). 

Seeing the immense appropriations thus secured, 
in the Fall of 1870, the " Carolina Printing Company " 
vras organized, consisting of Governor R. K. Scott, 
Attorney-General D. H. Chamberlain, Comptroller- 
General J. L. Neagle, Treasurer Niles G. Parker, J. 
W. Denny, J. W. Morris, and L. Cass Carpenter. 
This company owned the '' Daily Union " of Colum- 
bia, and the " Charleston Republican." (Page 215). 

Besides these officials, whose constitutional duty it 
was to guard the Treasury by mutual checks and 
countersignings, this powerful Ring embraced, on its 
unofficial list, the Clerks of both Houses, to take care 
of the " circle of friends " in their respective bodies. 
Afterwards, " all State officials, judges, lawyers, editors, 
reporters, lobbyists — male and female — white and 
black — all, from the highest to the lowest, manifest- 
ed deep interest in the passage of the Printing Com- 



190 APPENDIX. 

pany bills, and were paid according to their services 
and influence. (Page 217). 

As the results of all these financial contrivances, 
the Committee give the following astounding facts 
and figures, established by copies of vouchers, and 
the testimony of witnesses, most of whom were active 
participants in the frauds. 

" The amount appropriated and paid during the 
eight years, from 1868 to 1876, including the publi- 
cation of general laws, and claims for printing, was 
^1,326,586! This sum is about double the cost for 
public printing, from the establishment of the State 
Government up to 1868; including all the payments 
made, during the war, in Confederate money." (Page 
214). 

Again, they say, on the same page : " The appro- 
priations for public printing, and amounts paid news- 
papers for publishing Acts, in i872-'73, reached 
^450,000, or ^171,750 more than the printing cost the 
State for twenty-five years — commencing in i84i-'42, 
and ending in iS6^-66; including ^42,141.63 paid 
during the war, in 1864, and in Confederate currency, 
for one year's printing. 

" This amount of ^450,000, also, exceeds the cost of 
like work in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Maryland, and New York, by ^122,932.13 ; em- 
bracing, as they do, five of the largest and most 
populous of the Northern, Eastern, Southern and 
Western States." 

In i873-'74, another stunning appropriation of 
1^385,000 was made, making ^835,000 in fifteen 



APPENDIX. 



191 



months, or an average of $145,594 over and above 
the cost of printing in <?// the Southern States for the 
year 1878. (Page 215). 

In one of the " exhibits " of the Committee stands 
this telling contrast : 

Cost of printing per month, under Radical 

rule ;^5 5,666 OO" 

Cost of printing per month, under Hamp- 
ton rule $514 80 

The Committee, in receiving returns from the 
several States, as to the printing expenses of these 
eight years, were somewhat startled at the following 
official report from Louisiana, her nearest of kin in 
affliction : 



" In 1 868, paid for printing 
In 1869, paid for printing 
In 1870, paid for printing 
In 1 87 1, paid for printing 
In 1872, paid for printing 
In 1873, paid for printing 
In 1874, paid for printing 
In 1875, paid for printing 
In 1876, paid for printing 
In 1877, paid for printing 



$125,343 00 
439,345 00 
317,135 00 
362,493 00 
154.752 00 
172,891 00 
158,801 00 
200,000 00 
148,816 92 
40,528 71 



$2,120,105 63 
Very respectfully, etc., 

Louis Leonard, 
CJiairinaii Comuiittee on Printing-^ 



192 APPENDIX. 

This gives an excess of Louisiana printing bills 
over those of South Carolina of ;^793,5 19.63, just 
about the difference in resources of the two States, 
under the equally skillful and unscrupulous manipu- 
lation of tlieir carpet-bag gentry. 

We will close this very general analysis of these 
stupendous frauds in the words of the Committee : 

" The history of the Carolina Printing Company, 
the " Republican Printing Company," and their off- 
shoots, the Columbia Daily Union, and the Charleston 
Republican (if the testimony is to be believed, and, 
surely, who can doubt its truth, corroborated, as it is, 
in all essential particulars ?) is sufficient, in any court, 
to consign almost every person connected with them 
to the penitentiary for life. Some of the parties to 
these great crimes are now in prison ; whilst many 
others, having deserted their luxurious homes and 
fire-sides, are fugitives from justice, skulking abroad. 
They and all connected with them in these atrocious 
deeds should feel deeply grateful that the people of 
South Carolina, governed by wise and prudent coun- 
sels, have attempted and will only attempt to bring 
them to punishment by due process of law, instead of 
rising up long ago, in a storm of just indignation and 
wrath, and sweeping them from the face of the earth. 

" Perhaps a vail of charity should, in some degree, 
be thrown over the poor and ignorant colored men 
who have been deceived, misled, and incriminated by 
artful, corrupt and shameless leaders ; but if, in the 
exercise of great generosity and forbearance, these 
poor and ignorant men shall be spared, it should 



APPENDIX. 193 

teach them none the less, that dishonesty and fraud 
will eventually meet a merited punishment." (Page 
252). 

To scramble out of this filthy, Serbonian bog and 
plunge into another equally deep, and, probably, 
more extensive, we must hold our breath and noses, 
and venture into the confines, at least, of the 

PAY CERTIFICATES. 

This, too, sprung from small beginnings. The 
Speaker of the House, and the President of the Sen- 
ate, being authorized to sign these for their respective 
Houses, the temptation to multiply soon became irre- 
sistible, as they were supreme in this department. 
The committee soon reached such facts as this : 

"The House actually employed eight laborers, and 
from five to ten pages. Yet we have certificates from 
the Treasurer's office, showing that as many as 159 
laborers, and 124 pages were paid during one session; 
and for many sessions. Certificates were issued for 
fifty pages, many of whom were children of mem- 
bers." (Page 398). 

But such results as these soon dwindled into mere 
pin-money, when contrasted with what followed in an 
astonishingly short time. 

The Committee say, " to perpetuate the power and 
influence of the Radical party, it was necessary to 
have a ready and unfailing reservoir of funds ; and 
no simpler or easier way suggested itself than these 
certificates. Thus it became not only possible, but 
practicable to perpetuate the numerous frauds in the 



194 APPENDIX. 

public printing and supplies to which we have already 
alluded. Indeed, this, like the famous Hydra, threw 
out its hundred heads, encircling and poisoning every 
department of the government, and giving comfort 
and support to local leaders. This immense fund 
produced and nurtured a Bond-Ring, a Printing-Ring, 
and this Legislative-Ring — the most popular, and, at 
the same time, the most unscrupulous. It is evident, 
from the testimony, that such a fund as this was 
necessary to silence any complaint within their own 
ranks, and to pacify the fears of the timid, and the 
greed of the avaricious, while the other great Rings 
were in successful progress." (Page 389.) While the 
Bond-Ring composed of a limited number of State 
officers were revelling in their mammoth speculations 
in bonds, with Kimpton, as their unfailing bank ; this 
Legislative-Ring could only successfully contend with 
them, for their share of the taxes, through this cer- 
tificate-contrivance, manipulated by Solomon's swind- 
ling depository for State taxes, called by the imposing 
name of tlie " Carolina Loan and Trust Co." Of this 
institution the Committee say, *'It is now known that 
the bank referred to (Solomon's), was inaugurated in 
fraud, supported by a ring of political pirates, com- 
posed of Chamberlain, Scott, Parker and other officials, 
and exhibited, during its existence," a series of cor- 
ruptions and robberies unknown in the history of any 
other corporation." (Page 525). 

These certificates soon reached magnificent pro- 
portions, ranging from ^^500, to ;^5,ooo, on a single 
paper. For these larger ones, a conference was gen- 



APPENDIX. 195 

really called of the presiding officers of both Houses, 
the State Treasurer, and the chairmen of the Finance 
Committees of both Houses. Of course, the State 
was entirely powerless against a conspiracy of her 
own guardians ; and we are not astounded when the 
committee say, ** The table submitted with this report, 
shows, among other things, that in oiie session there 
was issued ;^ 1, 168, 25 5, in pay certificates (not in- 
cluding printing certificates), every dollar of which 
was a robbery, with the exception of about $200,000, 
due members and legally appointed attachees of the 
General Assembly." (Page 390). 

Sometimes there was a co-operation between the 
** Bond " and " Certificate " powers, and then the 
Treasury would collapse. This was notably the case 
when " A Joint Special Investigating Committee,"' 
familiarly called in the parlance of that day, " The 
High Old Joint," — was appointed in \^ji-^2, to ex- 
amine the books of the Financial Agent, Kimpton, 
with reference mainly to the Sinking Fund. The 
appointment of this committee was merely " a tub to 
the whale,'' in answer to the tax-payers. It consisted 
of B. F. Whittemore and S. A. Swails, of the Senate, 
and Jno. B. Dennis, Wm. H. Gardner, and Tim. 
Hurley, of the House — five of the head devils in all 
financial rascality. Kimpton was in New York City, 
and it was necessary to go there for the investigation. 
In fact, another grand conspiracy was going on in 
New York, requiring the presence there, not only of 
Kimpton, but of Governor Scott, Treasurer Parker, 
and Secretary of State Cardozo. The last named 



196 APPENDIX. 

havincr taken the Great Seal of the State aloncr with 
him. This conspiracy was, then and there to sign, 
seal, and put on the market, without any semblance 
of authority, six millions of the " Sterling Bonds." 
This grand scheme was frustrated, after the bonds had 
been executed, and just before they would have been 
put upon the market, b}^ an accidental discovery of 
the fraud through a clerk in the "American Bank- 
Note Company." (Page 425). 

But to return to our " High Old Joint." They at 
once became more concerned about their pay than 
their duties, and as there was much doubt as to the 
proper fund on which they could draw, they con- 
sulted Attorney-General Chamberlain, who was al- 
ways fertile in expedients. His advice was to look 
direcrly to Kimpton, who would pay out handsome- 
ly. After making some preliminary drafts on the 
" Armed Force Fund,'^ and others, they went on 
leisurely, to Kimpton's quarters in New York, where 
they found Chamberlain awaiting them. The matter 
of expenses was soon satisfactorily arranged, and as 
Kimpton complained of having been overworked re- 
cently, and of needing rest, a recess of one month 
was cheerfully granted him, during which Whitte- 
more went to his old home in Massachusetts, Swails 
went to Elmira, N. Y., Dennis to New Haven, Hur- 
ley to Boston, and Gardner accompanied Kimpton to 
Saratoga. Kimpton wanted this margin of time to 
*' cook the books " of his agency, and make them 
ready for the inspection of this virtuous Committee, 
not from any fear of exposure, but to deprive the 



APPENDIX. 197 

members of the opportunity and pretext of black- 
mail. (Page 393.) 

He paid their expenses liberally, $3,108 being the 
largest, and $1,284 the smallest sum paid any single 
member of the Committee. The Chairman estimated 
the advances thus made at $12,501.32, and yet Kimp- 
ton charged the State the even $17,000, under this 
head, and every dollar of this amount was included 
in Kimpton's account against the State, and balanced 
in the settlement made with him by Scott, Parker 
and Chamberlain, when they left their offices in 1872. 
(Page- 293.) 

Frank Moses was impatient at remaining at home, 
when such luxurious pickings were to be enjoyed in 
New York, so he had himself summoned to give in- 
formation on the purchase of arms, under his admin- 
istration, as Adjutant-General. On his return he 
made out, as Speaker, a pay certificate in favor of 
some fictitious name, for $2,500. He had no diffi- 
culty in procuring the signature of the Chairman of 
the " High Old Joint," but, as a Joint Committee, it 
required the signature of the President of the Senate. 
The virtuous Lieutenant-Governor, Ransier, positive- 
ly refused his official signature until the amount was 
raised to $5,000, and he permitted to share and share 
alike with the Speaker. (Page 394.) 

Another item of expense was the precise sum of 
$3,887.44 to the Printing Company for stationery 
furnished the same Committee ! 

Several pay certificates in favor of " experts ^' — 
when it was in evidence that iiot one expert had been 



198 APPENDIX. 

employed — threw a sum of about ^3,000 into the ca- 
pacious pockets of Whittemore. (Page 427.) 

Besides the liberal allowance paid by Kimpton, 
other members, either by direct charges for services 
rendered, or by fraudulent certificates like those of 
Whittemore, drew some ^12,000 directly from the 
State. 

Summing up all the vouchers of whatever kind, it 
was found that the pay of these " investigators " 
varied from ^60 per day for the highest, and ^20 for 
the lowest, for ninety-two days. (Page 393). 

By way of contrasting the resources of Radicals 
and Democrats at this time, take the following : The 
tax-payers, goaded almost to frenzy at the ruinous 
tax bills levied, and the corruption and robbery now 
as evident as the noon-day sun, and as unblushing, 
too, called a convention to send a commission to 
Washington to lay the facts of the case before the 
national administration. With some difficulty a con- 
tribution of some eight hundred dollars was raised 
from an impoverished people to pay the expenses of 
this mission. 

The Radicals, on the other hand, had only to wink 
at a pay certificate in favor of " F. L. Christopher" 
(F. L. Cardoza, at that time treasurer), for ^2500, and 
soon t/ieir Committee, with Whittemore at its head, 
and Cardozo himself at its tail, were wending their 
way to Washington, to forestall this desperate effort 
of despairing men. Thus the tax-payers were forced, 
in addition to their own contributions, to pay, at the 
rate of three to one, the expenses of the thieves them- 



APPENDIX. 199 

selves sent on to thwart all their appeals ! It is need- 
less to say which Committee was successful. (Page 

390)- 

These emboldened thieves did not always wait for 

some great occasion to rob the treasury, but very 
many instances are recorded where two or more 
would play at the game successfully. In i87i-'72, 
J. J. Patterson proposed to Speaker Moses to turn 
over to him blank pay certificates, which he (Patter- 
son) would have filled up in favor of fictitious parties 
to the amount of ^30,000 ; for which he would ad- 
vance to Moses ;^ 1 0,000 in cash. This contract was 
promptly carried out, and the cash checks in favor of 
Moses, one for ;$7,ooo, and the other for ^3,000, were 
in evidence before the Committee, as also were the 
fictitious pay-certificates, all in the handwriting of one 
Jacobs, cashier of " Solomon's Bank." (Page 399). 

On another occasion, Cardozo, as treasurer, found 
an unexpended balance of ^75,000 appropriation, re- 
maining in the treasury to the amount of ^4,000. This 
anomaly he determined to turn to his own benefit. 
He wanted the signatures of the presiding officers 
and Clerks of both Houses, and, as usual, took them 
in as partners in the fraud. Abundant evidence was 
before the Committee of pay certificates, of ^800 each, 
in fivor of Gleaves, Lieutenant-Governor ; S. J. Lee, 
Speaker ; Woodruff, Clerk of the Senate ; and Jones, 
Clerk of the House ; and Cardozo, Treasurer. The 
name assumed by Cardozo in this transaction was 
'^ C. L. Frankfort." On this he has been indicted, 
and tried by a jury mostly of his race and party, and 
found " guilty." (Page 372). 



200 APPENDIX. 

Sometimes these certificates, in small amounts, were 
freely given parties who could tell or invent tales of 
Ku-Kluxism, or of any other suffering on account of 
party. (Page 390). 

The evidence also shows that visiting strangers, 
often from other States, would receive complimentary 
legislative certificates before leaving. (Page 400). 

And how does all this deviltry sum up ? The com- 
mittee show, by an ** Exhibit," that this account of 
" legislative expenses " averaged $^S^^^6g.2g, ajirni.- 
ally^ from 1870 to 1874, exclusive of printing ; while 
under Governor Hampton's administration of 1876- 
^jy, under very adverse circumstances, the same ac- 
count reached $'j'j,iig, printing included. (Page 407). 

The whole amount of appropriations for these four 
sessions was ^1,085,000, less the printing ; whilst the 
actual expenditures reached ^2,341,461.16! (Page 

407)- 

Could a few intelligent scoundrels, with both houses 

filled with lunatics, have accomplished more amazing 

feats of rascality? 

The remainder of the report under this head 
trenches upon those interminable bond-issues — a 
bottomless pit which can never be fully investigated 
but by the light of eternity. As far as known, any 
clear statement would require a book of itself, and 
then the unexplored would seem as broad and dark 
as when we began. 

Through Chamberlain's influence, Hiram H. Kimp- 
ton, an old college comrade of his, had been ap- 
pointed financial agent of the State. All these bonds 



APPENDIX. 201 

were manipulated by him. The only tribunal to 
which he was responsible, was the " Board of Fi- 
nance," for four years, consisting of Scott, Chamber- 
lain and Parker. Stupendous frauds were perpetrated 
under this organization, and never a murmur of dis- 
sent was heard from any individual member. These 
facts require no comment. In the 

GREENVILLE AND COLUMBIA RAILROAD SWINDLE 

we will attempt some short analysis of the frauds so 
fully brought to light. J. J. Patterson now comes to 
the front, and his pre-eminent financial skill in all 
railroad swindles landed him finally in Congress^ 
where he has served full six years as U. S. Senator. 

His first achievement was in carrying through the 
Lec[islature a co-ntract for rebuilding" the Blue Ridge 
Railroad, which he afterwards caused to be annulled, 
for the benefit of the State, by the snug little sum of 
eighty thousand dollars, to him, in hand, paid. (Page 

563). 

He then turned his eyes to tlie Greenville and Co- 
lumbia Railroad, and organized a company of twelve, 
embracing all the State officials, with Kimpton at the 
head, and, to do the dirtiest of their work in the 
house, Joe Crews was taken as the tail. Each share 
was valued at ^20,000, but Patterson's genius was 
shown in getting up this quarter of a million in stock 
without any party being called on for a quarter of a 
cent. 

The State owned 21,698 shares in the road, at $20 
per share, aggregating $433,960. Besides this, she 



202 APPENDIX. 

held a lien for indemnity for the million and a half in 
bonds guaranteed by her solemn act. 

To reach a sale of the shares, Patterson procured 
an Act to be passed creating a Sinking Fund Commis- 
sion, and authorizing them to sell all unproductive 
property belonging to the State. Ostensibly, the 
object of this act was to authorize the sale of damaged 
marble, granite, &c., lying about the State House 
grounds, but the terms of the act were elastic enough 
to cover all her railroad and real estate property. The 
very day after its passage, the shares of the Green- 
ville and Columbia Railroad were sold to the above 
.mentioned company, at the nominal price of $2.75 
per share, without any advertisement, and without 
any money being paid. How this was managed can 
be guessed from these facts : that Scott, Chamberlain 
and Neagle formed the majority of the sinking fund 
commission, and were also stockholders in this new 
company of twelve ; and that the cherubic Kimpton, 
the officer to invest the proceeds of sale, held two 
shares in the same company. (Page 563). 

But this did not give them a majority of the stock, 
and it became necessary to buy up enough from 
private shareholders. Selecting two natives, with 
empty purses and elastic consciences, for $10,000 
each, they easily procured their names and influence 
for the purchase of a sufficient number of shares, at 
;^2.75, to give them the unquestionable control of the 
road. They soon devised a scheme for the transfer 
of all the State shares to themselves, and the pur- 
chase money for private stockholders was furnished 
by Kimpton. (Page 564.) 



APPENDIX. 203 

As to the million and a half lien on the road, held 
by th^ State, another Act was hurried through the 
Legislature by bribery, and under its forced provis- 
ions the Uen was postponed to bonds, to be issued 
under a second mortgage ; thus enabling the ring to 
divide and put their bonds on the market, while the 
only security held by the State was swept away, and 
a contingent debt of fifteen hundred thousand dollars 
fixed upon the State, without indemnity. Thus, in 
the words of the Committee, ** this ring secured to 
themselves comparatively miserable morsels of plun- 
der, whilst the State was robbed of millions to carry 
out the scheme.'' (Page 565.) 

How Kimpton managed to furnish so much cash is 
easily accounted for. The Financial Board bought 
the authority, by Act of the Legislature, to settle 
with the Financial Agent. Kimpton's report of the 
sale of over ;^8,000,000 of bonds was before the Com- 
mittee, and for nine-tenths of this enormous amount 
there is no mention made of any rates of sale. There 
were only four items of sales in the report, and two 
of them were, respectively, ;^2, 843,000 bonds sold on 
one day, and ^4,214,500 sold on another. Of course 
he had it in his power to make as great a difference 
between the rates of the actual and reported sales as 
he chose, and the Financial Board actually settled 
with him on the basis of this report. (Page 567.) 

With this convenient arrangement there was no 
limit to their liberality in bribing. Moses was 
Speaker, and feeling his importance in their Legis- 
lative schemes, he fixed a high price on his conni- 
10 



204 APPENDIX. 

vance. Kimpton agreed to give him ;^25,000 for the 
privilege of appointing certain Committees of the 
House. But as ^13,000 of this amount was /already 
covered by a mortgage held by Kimpton on him, 
personally, he was indifferent about recognizing the 
appropriate persons in debate. One important meas- 
ure was about to be postponed by dilatory motions, 
made by parties who thought they had not received 
as much as they were worth, and Moses rather aided 
their schemes. Patterson, as lobbyist, seeing the 
danger, sent Dennis to Moses' chair, with the in- 
struction, " Go and ask that damned scoundrel how 
much he wants." The answer came back i3romptly, 
" ^10,000 over and above every thing," " Tell him, 
all right ; he shall have it." But Moses was still 
" dilatory," till the promise was reduced to writing 
and put into the hands of his confidential friend, Joe 
Crews, (Page 511.) 

THE IMPEACHMENT SWINDLE. 

These bond-frauds were so gross and palpable that, 
in December, 187 1, C. C. Bowen, one of the disaffect- 
ed, actually introduced into the Legislature a resolu- 
tion of impeachment against R. K, Scott, as repre- 
senting the Board of Finance, Knowing Kimpton's 
resources, and the venality of the tribunal. Chamber- 
lain was as calm as a summer's eve. Not so with 
Scott and Parker ; and their evident alarm only af- 
forded another opportunity for the display of Patter- 
son's genius, in finding " good stealing;/' even in this 
side-issue. By his henchman, Worthington, he gave 



APPENDIX. 205 

encouragement to the measure by day, and by night 
he personally worked on the fears of Scott and Parker; 
thus " running with the hare, and holding with the 
hounds." When he had fully succeeded, and Scott and 
Parker were helplessly alarmed, he proposed a panacea 
which Worthington and himself alone could admin- 
ister. That was the notorious warrants on the Armed 
[^""orce Fund — one for" Mooney," of $25,000 ; a second 
for Legget, of ;^io,6oo; and a third for "David H. 
Wilson,"' of $13,000. Of course no such persons had 
ever lived, to their knowledge. With this snug little 
$49,100, he promised to make ail lovely for him in 
the Legislature, and fulfilled his promise with proba- 
bly a tithe of the amount. (Page 583). 

The report on this mere by-play gives some very 
interesting reading, but, compared with his mammoth 
jobs of rascality in that day, was only an interlude 
for Patterson. But his peculiar genius for swindling 
found full play in the passage of the Acts called, re- 
spectively, 

THE BLUE RIDGK RAILROAD SCRIP, THE VALIDATING ACT, 
AND THE FINANCIAL SETTLEMENT. 

Having bought the position of President of the 
Blue Ridge Railroad, he soon afterwards announced 
a grand scheme to relieve the State of her $4,000,000 
guaranty on its bonds, by the issue of " scrip," os- 
tensibly to pay all the honest debts of the Blue Ridge 
Railroad Company ; but, in fact, to be converted into 
a private and personal fund, for purposes of corrup- 
tion. By a system of wholesale bribery — the details 



206 APPENDIX. 

of which were furnished the Committee, mainly, by 
the parties bribed — his bill soon became a law. This 
elevated him to a platform of rascality as high as 
Kimpton himself; and we soon find him dictating 
the terms to Kimpton on which he would furnish the 
means for purchasing votes enough to secure the 
passage of the iniquitous " Validating " and " Financial 
Settlement " Acts. Here is the precious document in 
full, the original having been furnished the Committee 
by Treasurer Parker himself: 

Vice-President's Office, 
Greenville & Columbia R. R. Co. 

Columbia, S. C, March 4, 1872. 

Hon. Niles G. Parker, 

State Treasurer^ South Carolina: 

Please deliver to H. H. Kimpton, ** revenue bond 
scrip," due the Blue Ridge Railroad Company, ac- 
cording to Act passed March 2, 1872, amounting to 
one hundred and fourteen thousand two hundred and 
fifty dollars, at par, upon the following conditions : 
That forty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty- 
seven dollars of said scrip, at par, is to be used for 
paying the expenses of passing through the House of 
Representatives bills styled, '* A Bill relating to the 
bonds of the State of South Carolina," and " A Bill 
to authorize the Financial Board to settle the ac- 
counts of the Financial Agent." Now, if these above 
named bills are passed and become laws, this order 
for forty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven 
dollars, in scrip, at par, is to be paid said Kimpton ; 



APPENDIX. 207 

and, if not passed, then this order for that amount to 
be voidj and the scrip is not to be delivered. Also, 
that seventy-one thousand four hundred and fourteen 
dollars of scrip, at par, you shall deliver to said Kimp- 
ton, if said bills become laws, and provided he shall 
pay the sum of fifty thousand dollars, the proceeds 
of said scrip at seventy cents on the dollar, in paying 
the expenses already incurred, in passing through 
the Senate the bill known as " A Bill to relieve the 
State of all liability on account of guaranty of Blue 
Ridge Railroad bonds, etc.," passed March 2, 1872, 
which said expenses said Kimpton has contracted to 
pay ; and if the said Kimpton fails or refuses to pay 
said amounts in defraying said expenses (when re- 
quired by me), then this order to be void. If said 
conditions are complied with, and the amount of said 
scrip delivered to Kimpton, he is not to be held liable 
for, or to account for its value. The above two sums 
of $42,859 and ;$7i,4i4, in scrip, at par, make up the 
amount of scrip first mentioned in this order. 

John J. Patterson, 
President of Blue Ridge Railroad Co. in S. C. 
Witness : R. B. Elliott. 

In the language of the Committee, '' comment, crit- 
icism, or denunciation would only weaken the force 
of such a document." (Page 614). 

Of the two Acts above mentioned, the first appeared 
to be merely an Act to validate the irregular issue of 
certain bonds; but was really intended to legalize the 
illegal use and disposition of $6,000,000 of State 



208 APPENDIX. 

bonds by Kimpton, and then to fasten such debt 
upon the State. 

The second, simply empowered the notorious Fi- 
nancial Board to make a settlement with Kimpton, 
as Financial Agent ; but really afforded the desired 
opportunity of covering up and cancelling the large 
amounts paid out by Kimpton, from sales of bonds 
illegally made, to be divided out among the Ring as 
" commissions," and in carrying the purchase of the 
Greenville and Columbia Railroad by the same ring. 

All these measures were passed, of course; but the 
Blue Ridge scrip came to grief; Patterson and Scott 
were not in the same boat in this matter, and it did 
not suit the Governor to have the great bulk of the 
next year's taxes collected in Patterson's scrip. He, 
therefore, had the Treasurer of Richland enjoined 
from receiving them for taxes ; and the case, going 
up to the Supreme Court, was finally decided against 
this scrip as State legal tender. There was evidence 
before the Committee that Patterson attempted to 
bribe this tribunal also, but his money did not go 
farther than the bottomless pit of Frank Moses' 
purse. 

The next Legislature passed an Act repealing Pat- 
terson's Blue Ridge swindle, but his timely bribe of 
;^ 1,000 caused the Chairman of the Engrossing Com- 
mittee to lose it between the Senate Chamber and the 
Executive office, where it should have gone, for the 
Governor's signature. This gave Patterson one year 
more to secure his pilferings. (Page 646). 

Dropping Patterson for a time, we must permit 



APPENDIX. 209 

D. H. Chamberlain to come to the front, out of that 
professional bomb-proof, where he had. all along, so 
securely ensconced himself In the matter of 

THE KU-KLUX REWARDS, 

he figured largely as. " attorney in fact " for Brevet- 
Colonel Lewis Merrill, U. S. A. In 1871, Governor 
Scott had issued a proclamation offering a reward of 
;$200 for each person arrested, with proof to convict 
of the charge, under the " Enforcement," commonly 
known as the " Ku-Klux Act." 

Some allusions have already been made, in this 
book, to the persecutions in York County, under the 
indefatigable and unscrupulous administration of 
Lewis Merrill, Brevet-Colonel, U. S. A. We now 
find the true stimulus to his patriotic zeal and great 
ardor in the discharge of his high military trusts, 
when the time for " rewards " had come. 

The lavish waste of the public money, under the 
head of these rewards, began with one Hester, a '' re- 
formed Ku-Klux," under whose single evidence so 
many poor creatures had been sent to the peniten- 
tiary. Hester demanded $18,600 under the Govern- 
or's proclamation, for ninety-three arrests and con- 
victions. This little bill rather staggered Scott, and 
he was disposed to put him off under the plea of "no 
funds." The next day, Hester returned with a re- 
commendation from Chamberlain, as Attorney-Gen- 
eral, that the amount be paid from the "Armed Force 
Fund," which was carried out to the mutual satisfac- 
tion of client and attorney. (Page 653). 



210 APPENDIX. 

During the Session of 1871-72, an Act was passed 
appropriating the sum of ^35,000 to pay the claims 
under this proclamation. It was in evidence before 
the Committee, that both Attorney-General Chamber- 
lain and Major Merrill were very active and urgent 
in lobbying this Act through the Legislature. It was 
finally passed — the rewards to be paid -by the Gov- 
ernor. Moses being the chief executive, this did not 
suit the parties mainly interested. So, he was " in- 
duced " to turn the matter of the disbursement over 
to a commission of five — of which commission, D. H. 
Chamberlain was chairman. The vouchers show 
warrants in favor of Merrill to the amount of ^15,750, 
and an additional order on the Armed Force Fund 
for ;^500 to re imburse the United States Government 
for money advanced in this army hunt after the Ku- 
Klux. 

There was another award of ^1,200 to one Byron, 
Private Secretary to Governor Moses, and confidential 
adviser to Merrill. 

The Committee call particular attention to the 
course of Chamberlain, as follows : 

" Whilst he was Attorney-General of the State, 
recommending officially to the Governor, the pay- 
ment of this large claim to Hester, based upon his 
assumed arrest of ninety-three persons, under the 
proclamation, the payment to be made out of the 
Armed Force Fund, which he knew to be illegal. 

"Afterwards, as a lobby agent, using his influence to 
have the appropriation of ;^35,ooo passed. As the 
attorney in fact of Merrill, persuading Governor 



APPENDIX. 211 

Moses to appoint a commission to do, what the Act 
required the Governor liimself to do ; procuring 
himself to be appointed chairman of the commission 
for tlie distribution of said fund; and, wliilst so deep- 
ly interested, presiding, hearing, and joining in the 
decision of this matter ; and, after the awards were 
made, collecting and receiving the amount of Merrill's 
warrants, indorsing them ' D. H. Chamberlain, attor- 
ney in fact for Lewis Merrill;' and, with his associ- 
ates, appropriating ^500 each out of the money ap- 
propriated by law to pay rewards, under a proclama- 
tion of Governor Scott. 

" The conflict of interests represented by him is 
plain enough. How he was able to do exact and im- 
partial justice to his client and the State, is not so 
clear. The bald fact stands out, that his client, Maj. 
Lewis Merrill, U. S. A., with his ^15.750 ' rewards,' 
was well taken care of." (Page 655.) 

Of Lewis Merrill, Brevet-Colonel, United States 
Army, they say : 

" The testimony shows that he (Merrill) made him- 
self unusually active and officious in procuring the 
passage of the appropriation of ^35,000 through the 
Legislature. He enlisted the services of the private 
secretary of the Governor in his interests, and was 
himself rewarded with the lion's share — a result not 
to be surprised at, when he had Attorney-General 
Chamberlain, Chairman of the Commission, in his 
employ. During all these arduous labors, this crea- 
ture Merrill was in the receipt of his usual pay and 
commutation as a field officer in the army of the 
United States." (Page 655.) 



212 APPENDIX. 

The Committee obtained from the records of the 
United States Circuit Court a certificate, under seal, 
from the clerk, that one hundred and nine cases gave 
the sum total of all who had been convicted, or plead- 
ed guilty, under these Ku-Klux indictments, which 
would call for ^21,800 under the proclamation; and 
yet every dollar of the ^35,000 was expended. 

The only point where Patterson showed his paw, 
was in having his tool, Worthington, appointed as- 
sistant counsel in the prosecutions, at the moderate 
compensation of ^3500 per annum. He himself was 
after larger game. 

The gratification, entertainment and amusement 
offered the new-fledged voters in enrolling the whole 

MILITIA 

of the State, exclusively of colored troops, turned out 
very expensive under the administration of the spend- 
thrift Moses as Adjutant-General. The Committee 
say that "just previous to the general election in 
1870, more than ;^ioo,000 was expended; and, in- 
deed, the simple enrollment absorbed over ^200,000 
of the public funds. This money furnished favorites 
with individual campaign funds, to be used in secur- 
ing their election to the Legislature, or county offices ; 
and those favored persons, in their turn, were ex- 
pected to operate as auxiliaries to perpetuate the 
power of the party and of the ring." (Page 667). 

The Moses contracts for furnishing arms to these 
sable warriors are too disgusting even for association 
with the foregoing black catalogue. 



APPENDIX. 213 

By way of episode, we insert one or two specimens 
from the Committee's vouchers, mainly to confirna 
certain statements in our accounts of the Laurens 
troubles. On page 675 will be found this explicit 
document : 

Laurens, S. C, July 8, 1870. 
" Capt. Hubbard, 

Chief Constable. 

Dear Sir : Your letter of the 2d was received 
to-day, enclosing the money due me. It came in 
good time. We are going to have a hard campaign 
up here, and we must have more constables. I will 
carry the election here with the militia, if the constables 
will zvork with inc. I am giving out ammunition all 
the time. Tell Scott he is all right here now. Let 
me know how times are below. 

Respectfully, 

Joseph Crews." 

Also, on pages 683 and 684, the following receipts 
as Lieutenant-Colonel and Aid to the Governor: 

" Received this 13th day of June, 1870, of General 
Dennis, Acting Ordnance Officer, the following: 

13th June, 1870 — 300 rifle muskets, 300 bayo- 
net-scabbards, 300 tompions, 300 screw-drivers and 
WTenches, 25 tumbler punches, 300 cartridge boxes, 
300 cap pouches, 300 waist belts and plates, 300 gun 
slings, 12 arm chests, 2000 rounds of ammunition. 

2nd August, 1870 — 320 rifle muskets, 320 bayo- 
nets and scabbards, 320 tompions, 320 screw-drivers 
and wrenches, 80 tumbler punches, 320 cartridge 



214 APPENDIX. 

boxes, 320 cartridge box belts, 320 cap pouches, 320 
waist belts and plates, 320 gun slings, 12 arm chests, 
8,000 rounds of ammunition (!). 

Joseph Crews, 
Lieutenant- Colonel and A. D. C. 

Finally, this other, which " followed hard upon " : 
(Page 685.) 

'^ Received at Columbia, this 25th day of Septem- 
ber, 1870, ten thousand rounds of ammunition, (Rem. 
Pat.) Y. J. P. Owens." 

the armed force fund 

authorized to be drawn from any funds in the 
treasury, not otherwise appropriated, was even 
more abused than the militia fund, as we have seen 
from the preceding pages. Of the Armed Force, or 
" Constabulary,'' as it was more familiarly called, the 
Committee say : 

"All through the testimony it will be seen that 
this ' Force ' was used, not to preserve the peace, 
but to carry elections for the party, and to intimidate 
those not of the party. One hundred and fifty-one 
deputy constables were appointed, on full per diem 
and mileage, and over five hundred to do special ser- 
vice, just before and during elections. Many were 
mounted, armed and equipped to do service and 
scour the country from county to county; and to 
perform the peculiar services alluded to in their daily 
and weekly reports to the chief constable, (Hubbard.) 
This bosom friend and confidential adviser of the 
Governor consolidated all these reports for his in- 



APPENDIX. 215 

formation, on such points as how many political 
meetings they had attended, political condition of 
county or township, and how many of them could be 
elected to the Legislature or county offices. A large 
number of these deputies had been imported from 
Ohio and Pennsylvania — friends of Scott and Patter- 
son—and it is interesting to know that more than 
twenty of them succeeded in obtaining seats in the 
Legislature." (Page 702.) 

There was one instance, in this importation of 
** bummers," when Scott was well nigh " hoist by 
his own petard. '^ 

Union County was considered very doubtful in the 
then coming election. The ordinary means of in- 
timidation, through the constabulary, having failed in 
that community, Scott sent one C. C. Baker on to 
New York City, to bring on thirty-two of the hardest 
cases he could find, under pretext of working a gold 
mine in that county, but, in fact, to overawe and 
harass. 

These were in addition to the 151 above mentioned, 
and were to be specially armed with Winchester 
rifles and navy pistols. Hubbard testified before the 
Committee in these words : " I don't think it would 
have been possible to have selected, or even to have 
found a more dangerous lot of men in any city in the 
Union." Certainly, if L. B. Hubbard says this, they 
must have approximated devils incarnate very nearly. 
Hubbard goes on : " As Scott could not comply 
with all their demands, he became much demoralized 
and frightened, fearing they would kill Jiim. At his 



2l6 APPENDIX. 

request, I paid them all off liberally, bought through 
tickets for them from Columbia to New York, via 
Charleston steamer, and saw them all safely em- 
barked. He was afraid lest any one of them should 
be left in Columbia.'^ 

The constituted authorities of New York may thus 
take comfort from the fact that the purlieus of their 
city did furnish a body of men who could ^' demor- 
alize " and " frighten " the head devil of Radicalism 
in South Carolina at his own game. 

THE PENITENTIARY 

was an unceasing drain on the Treasury for ten long 
years, the greater part of which flowed into the pri- 
vate purses of superintendents, directors, and Hardy 
Solomon, of course. 

South Carolina had no penitentiary before the war, 
but in the violent changes in our institutions after the 
war, it was one of the first acts of Orr's administration 
(1866) to establish one. Major Thos. B. Lee, a very 
skillful engineer and architect, and a man of the 
highest integrity, was selected as the first Superin- 
tendent. Of him the Committee say : " The whole 
expenditure passed, and deficiencies due from 1866 
to 1877 exceed $900,000, of which the two years' 
term of Major Lee is chargeable with about one-sixth 
— which, contrasted with the work since done, and 
the amount expended, gives the highest evidence of 
his faithfulness, economy, and fitness for the office, 
and fully vindicates the good judgment of Governor 
Orr's appointment." (Page JJ^. Major Lee's term 



APPENDIX. 217 

was for more than two years, during which the main 
buildings were erected, and the expensive machinery 
for self-sustaining labor was introduced. 

But Scott saw too much money flowing that way, 
from the Treasury, to suffer it to go into honest hands, 
and he soon trumped up trivial causes for the re- 
moval of Lee. When he gave Stolbrand — one of his 
own kidney and people — the place, he began to feel 
comfortable. His first operation was to loan Stol- 
brand, as Superintendent, $15,000, on a deposit of 
$30,000 in warrants on the Treasury, and then quietly 
to ignore the loan and collect the collaterals. Stol- 
brand himself, in conniving with the directors on the 
one hand, and Hardy Solomons on the other, made 
money so fast, that the place was adjudged worthy 
of higher financial talents, and more finished rascality, 
so he had to " step down and out ; ^' and General 
Dennis, one of the carpet-bag princes, reigned in his 
stead. Hif5 directors were Neagle, Comptroller- 
General ; W. B. Nash, colored Senator from Rich- 
land, and Hayne, colored Secretary of State. And 
now the system of stealing was somewhat simplified, 
by having Dennis, Nash, and Hayne as the inner 
ring, and Dennis, Neagle, and Solomons as the outer 
ring. Nash had a brickyard, and his bills for bricks 
furnished would go far to throw a Chinese wall 
around the whole of Columbia; while Hayne, with 
no wood yard at all, furnished fuel enough to burn all 
of Nash's bricks. These accounts had to be audited 
by the outer ring, who were all the while playing 
that game with the Treasury which the boys used to 
call " heads I win, tails you lose." 



2l8 APPENDIX. 

In addition to his peculiar assistance, through his 
bank, Solomons furnished the convicts with all their 
edible supplies ; and the single article of *' bacon " 
would allow a ration of seven pounds to each per day. 
But what shall we say when we see items, and large 
ones, too, for brandy, whiskey, cigars, sardines, cit- 
rons, raisins, chocolate, almonds, etc., etc. ? (Page 

775). 

But we will dismiss this subject with the single 
remark, that the Committee have published evidence 
enough, established by official vouchers, too, to put 
into this institution for life all who were officially 
connected with it, under either Stolbrand or Dennis. 

Even the institutions of charity, such as 

THE COLORED ORPHAN ASYLUM, AND THE TRANSIENT 
SICK AND POOR, 

eventually fell under the management of unscrupu- 
lous thieves, thus verifying, and making literally true, 
the figurative language used by the Committee al- 
most at the beginning of their report, when they 
say that " the frauds, perjuries, embezzlements and 
larceny of the party in power, covered every trans- 
action and article, from the cradle of the infant to the 
coffin and cerements of the dead." 

Of the former, we will only say that their bills of 
supply would do credit to a first class restaurant in a 
large city; and their dry goods, millinery, and almost 
every article of female attire, would be appropriate 
only to the most extravagant female colleges. 

" The transient sick and poor of the various towns 



APPENDIX. 219 

and cities of this State" reached down to the coffin 
and the undertaker. The largest voucher under this 
head was a draft in favor of that eminent philanthrop- 
ist, Hardy Solomons, for ;^2,500. The orders were 
comparatively small, and many of them in favor of 
political tramps passing through Columbia. Notably 
was one in favor of Col. Kirk — he of *' Kirk's Lambs '^ 
in North Carolina — to help him on his way from 
Augusta to Washington City. 

Our task is almost done. If it wearies and disgusts 
the reader merely to examine these specimen sheets, 
how must it be with him who has to delve in all this 
mire and filth to give posterity some insight into the 
pandemonium to which a sovereign State of this 
Union has been subjected, helplessly, for eight long 
years ? 

We imist, however, refer the reader to the report 
itself for details — if he can stand them — under the 
more personal headings of 

LOAN TO F. J. MOSES, GOVERNOR'S CONTINGENT FUND, 
HARDY SOLOMONS' CLAIM, TREASURER'S DUE BILLS, 
ELECTION OF T. C. DUNN, BRIBERY BY CHAMBERLAIN IN 
WHALEy's CASE, DUNN AND THE LIFE INSURANCE, W. J. 
WHIPPER AND HIS CERTIFICATES. 

The last mentioned name (Whipper) figures large- 
ly in this report, though we have passed him over, 
so far, unnoticed. He was the colored representa- 
tive from Beaufort, and elected Circuit Judge with 
F. J. Moses, though neither of them were permitted 
to disgrace the Bench. There is one voucher in his 



220 APPENDIX. 

case which we wiil insert mainly to show the esti- 
mate he placed on his own professional ability-. 
(Page 853.) 

IV. y. Whippe7% in account with Sinking Fund, State of 
South Carolina. 

1872. Dr. 

January. To amount received from the 
City of Charleston per sale of 
Powder Magazine, one-third 
of ^7,100 ........ ^2,368 00 

** To amount received from H. 

Bischoff, for lot of land on 
Line and Meeting street, 
Charleston, one-third of ;^6, 875, 2,291 66 
" To amount received from J. S. 

Riggs, for lot of land on Line 
street, one-third of ;^5 50 . . . 183 33 

March. To amount received from A. 
McBee, for State, works and 
grounds, Greenville, one-third 

of ^2,850 . .- 950 00 

" To amount received from Pleas- 
ant Barton, first instalment 
of lease of State-road, Green- 
ville 725 00 

$6,517 99 



appendix. 221 

Cr. 
January. By auctioneer's commission on 

;$7,ioo, at 2^ per ct . . . . 1^177 50 
'* By auctioneer's commission on 

$^76, at 2^ per ct 1 71 8/ 

" By auctioneer's commission on 

;^550, at 2>^ per ct 13 75 

March. By auctioneer's commission on 
sale of State works and State- 
road, and papers, stamps and 

expenses 206 37 

" By cash paid for advertising, 

Charleston Courier 242 75 

By cash paid for advertising, 

Daily Ncivs 247 05 

By cash paid for advertising, 

Beaufort Times 32 00 

" By cash paid for advertising, 

Beaufort Republican 32 00 

" By amount due W. J. Whipper 

as attorney ;^7>033 ?>?> 

;^8,I56 62 
Recapitulation. 

Debtor by receipts ^^6,517 99 

Creditor by payments 8,156 62 

Due W. J. W ;^i,638 67, 

Now, J. L. Neagle, Comptroller-General, and asso- 
ciate with Scott and Chamberlain, as " Sinking Fund 
Commission," on page 854, testifies that Whipper, as 



n 



{( 



222 APPENDIX. 

Secretary of the Commission, was authorized to sell 
some real estate in Charleston, but ivas never em- 
ployed as attorney. 

In the same evidence before the Committee, Neagle 
gave the particulars of the sale of all the stock held 
by the State in the Greenville and Columbia Rail- 
road, in the South Carolina Railroad and South- 
western Railroad Bank, in the Cheraw and Coalfield 
Railroad, and in the Blue Ridge Railroad. The last 
item was ;^ 1,320,000, at one dollar per share. 

All the unused real estate to which the State held 
titles, both in Columbia and Charleston, was also sold, 
and all this, railroads and real estate, under an Act 
purporting to cover the sale of some perishable rub- 
bish in and about the State House grounds. 

The final chapter in this book of frauds, is exclu- 
sively devoted to the monstrous and unblushing 
bribery and corruption in the case of 

JOHN J. PATTERSON AND THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 

The committee give sixty-five pages of testimony, 
wherein is clearly set forth the testimony of seventy- 
five witnesses given under a promise of immunity as 
" State's evidence." Most of these were members of 
the Legislature, who received,- in hand paid, the 
bribes for their votes. The average price was ;^3oo 
for a vote, though in their final settlements, very few 
seemed to have realized in full the amounts promised. 
H. G. Worthington, under a promise of the Collect- 
orship in Charleston — which appointment he after- 
wards obtained — was Patterson's indefatigable and 



APPENDIX. 223 

unscrupulous *' right-hand man," throughout the 
canvass. 

The other candidates were R. B. Elliott, a colored 
representative, and R. K. Scott. In favor of Elliott 
was the fact that he was a representative colored man, 
and the majority of the Legislature were of that 
race. Scott had been paving the way for this per- 
sonal promotion for years back, as Governor, etc. 
Patterson held no official position whatever, but was 
only known as an adroit and successful lobbyist. His 
only chance in the race then was money, and the 
testimony shows how lavishly he expended it. How 
much it cost him will probably never be known ; but 
Senator Nash testifies, under oath, that Patterson told 
him after the election, that he had expended ;^40,000 
in bribes, and that he had been forced to sell all his 
Blue Ridge Scrip, and mortgage his real estate in 
Columbia to raise the amount. (Page 918,) On the 
same point, John A. Barker, member from Edgefield, 
testified that Patterson told him personally that a 
certain amount of money — seventy-five thousand 
dollars, if necessary — was ready on hand to secure 
his election, and then offered him ^i,coo for his own 
vote, and ^2,000 additional, if he would secure the 
votes of two others of his delegation, the money to 
be paid at the bank as soon as the vote was cast. 
(Page 879.) 

Of the seventy-five witnesses examined, sixty tes- 
tified to direct tenders of bribes — in most cases 
accepted too — and yet, Mr. Collector Worthington 
stated, under oath, before the committee, that he had 



224 APPENDIX. 

" no knowledge or information that money was used 
to secure the election of Patterson, save that he 
heard rumors of that kind on the streets." (Page 935.) 
Alarmed at one time, Patterson offered, through 
Gen, Dennis, to bribe Elliott himself off the field, 
with ;^ 1 5,000. This is established by the testimony 
of Elliott himself, who expressed much virtuous in- 
dignation at the base proposal. 

AFTER THE ELECTION, 

earnest efforts were made to bring- Patterson before 
the courts. He was immediately arrested, under a 
warrant for bribery, and sent to jail, whence he was 
promptly released on Habeas Corpus, by Judge 
Mackey. After a preliminary hearing before a Trial 
Justice, he was bound over to appear before the next 
Circuit Court. But Patterson laughed and snapped 
his finger at all this. Moses, as Governor, had al- 
ready removed the jury commissioner, and had 
• appointed Gen. Dennis in his stead. Judge Car- 
penter, Patterson's intimate friend, had just been 
elected to the bench, and Columbia belonged to his 
circuit. As to the juries in prospect. Gen. Dennis 
himself testified before the Committee : " When listing 
the juries for the year — grand and petit — I did not 
allow any name to go into the box in any way inimi- 
cal to Patterson. In this way there could be no pos- 
sibility of an enemy being drawn on either panel." 
(Page 936.) 

And so his case has stood from that day to this. 
When the judiciary was reformed in 1876, as well as 



APPENDIX. 225 

the Legislature, a serious effort was made to bring 
Patterson to trial, on this, as well as some other indict- 
ments. But a requisition on the proper authorities 
at Washington was judicially refused. 

In view of the vast amount of crime and fraud un- 
earthed by their very protracted and thorough inves- 
tigation, the Committee recommend that judicial 
proceedings be at once begun against the most 
prominent on the foregoing list of thieves and de- 
faulters. As to the spirit in which this should be 
done, they say, "and let this be undertaken in no 
temper of vengeance, not to gratify any morbid sen- 
timent that would gloat over the sufferings of the 
criminal, overtaken by the sad consequences of his 
crime. But let it be done in the spirit of the patriot 
and the statesman — the spirit of the law, as expressed 
by the old Roman jurist and orator, '^ ut pcrna ad 
paiicos, inctiis ad oinncs perveniat ;''^ and as we learn it 
in the forcible words of the great expositor of the 
English Common Law, ** the end or final cause of 
human punishment is not by way of atonement or 
expiation of the crime committed — for that must be 
left to the just determination of the Supreme Being — 
but as a precaution against further offences of the 
same kind." (Page 886.) 

The action of the Legislature, under this recom- 
mendation, caused the Attorney- General to begin 
proceedings — so far, with the following 

RESULTS. 

More than thirty ** True Bills " have been found by 
Grand Juries of Richland County — not very much 



226 APPENDIX. 

varied in their character — and covering a long list 
of names. Sometimes five or six names would be 
embraced under the same indictment, and sometimes 
the same name would be found several times re- 
peated. For instance, the name of Cardozo will be 
found on 7ii7ie separate indictments. 

With this explanation, only the following names 
can now be found on the Docket : H. H. Kimpton, 
D. H. Chamberlain, R. K. Scott, F. J. Moses, N. G. 
Parker, F. L. Cardozo, Robert Smalls, J. L. Neagle, 
F. S. Jacobs, (Solomons' Bank,) B. F. Whittemore, 
Solomon L. Hoge, Y. J. P. Owens, Thos. C. Dunn, 
R. H. Cleaves, Samuel J. Lee, Josephus Woodruff, 
A. O. Jones and L. Cass Carpenter. 

Of these, Parker, L. Cass Carpenter, Cardozo and 
Smalls, have been tried and convicted, on one indict- 
ment each ; so far, the other criminals have not been 
very accessible. 

Immunity has been granted to very many — mostly 
members of the Legislature — as in the seventy-five 
examined in Patterson's case. 

In other cases, as Woodruff's, Jones', Nash's, and 
some others, promises of restitution were exacted and 
complied ivith, and thus the State was relieved of a 
large amount of indebtedness by the surrender of 
papers. How much, if any, money was refunded, has 
never come to light. 

PERSONALS. 

Hiram H. Kimpton. — Two indictments in his case — 
one associating him with Patterson and Parker, for 



APPENDIX. 227 

"conspiracy" to bribe members of the Legislature — 
and the other simply of ** conspiracy," associating • 
him with Chamberlain, Parker, Neagle and Leslie. 
(What single State could have withstood such a con- 
spiracy as this ?) A requisition on the Governor of 
Massachusetts was made for Kimpton, not long since, 
but her constituted authorities could not consent to 
the abduction of the embodiment of so much native 
financial ability from the borders of that State. 

D. H. Chamberlain is also under indictment in 
the same court; but whether he will ever be tried is 
doubtful — and, if tried, whether he can be convicted, 
is still more doubtful. The slang expression of 
'' running into a hole, and then drawing in the hole 
after him/' is peculiarly appropriate to his course, all 
through his carpet-bag career. He has been the 
Alpha and Omega of Radicalism in South Carolina. 
Furnishing most of the brain in their first constitu- 
tional convention, serving as Attorney-General in 
their first administration, he was among the last of 
the office-holders to leave the State. A large share- 
holder in the " Printing Company," in the G. & C. 
R. R., in Solomons' Bank, and " attorney in fact" for 
several of the head devils in rascality, — yet he has 
managed always to keep himself behind the scenes, 
till his innate cunning would give him the cue. So 
well did he act his part, that even in 1876, when the 
" straightout " policy finally prevailed, there were 
many of our prominent citizens and newspapers who 
advocated Chamberlain, as the Conservative candidate 
for Governor. We can only say, that if Patterson 
II 



228 APPENDIX. 

reached the United States Senate on his peculiar car- 
pet-bag merits, — on the same ground, Daniel H. 
Chamberlain ought to be President for life. 

R. K. Scott's eight years' career has already been 
very fully given in these pages. He has never been 
tried, though there are more than one of the indict- 
ments awaiting him. He has returned to his native 
Ohio, where old Judge Tucker once said the prevail- 
ing classes were the white man and the hog. With 
all his ill-gotten wealth, R. K. S. will never reach 
the F. F. O's. 

B. F. Whittemore. — As senator from Darlington, his 
career in that county was even more diabolical than 
that of Joe Crews in Laurens. He retained his seat 
in the Senate, even after Chamberlain had abdicated 
as Governor. Finding the Investigating Committee 
hot on his trail, he applied for and received leave of 
absence to visit his "sick family" in Massachusetts. 
Pairing with a nicniber of this Investigating Committee 
in the Senate, he took the train, and has not been seen 
or heard from since. 

N. G. Parker. — Tried and convicted in the summer 
of 1875, under an indictment of " Larceny, and breach 
of trust, with fraudulent intent." Escaped from jail ; 
was recaptured, and finally pardoned for that offense 
on promise to tell all he knew. There are five other 
indictments against him, and he has departed to parts 
unknown. 

L. Cass Carpenter, editor and sympathizing lob- 
byist, was tried and convicted on an indictment of 
"Forgery." Pardoned, as to that case, by the Gover- 



APPENDIX. 229 

nor, on a petition carried around the Democratic 
Legislature by his wife, in person, in which it was 
asserted that his life would be endangered by his 
longer incarceration, as his health was very feeble. 
There are still four other indictments against him, and 
all for the same crime. Recently, at Washington, and 
elsewhere, the papers represent him as devoting his 
spared life to abusing and vilifying those to whose 
clemency he is indebted for his life. 

Y. J. P. Owens, senator from Laurens, indicted 
more than once for " conspiracy to cheat by false 
tokens," left his country for his country's good, and 
after wasting his ill-gotten substance in riotous living, 
died miserably in some northern city, from excessive 
debauchery. 

Francis L. Cakdozo. was tried and convicted by 
a jury of his own race, of " conspiracy." The 
President and Clerk of the Senate, and the Speaker 
and Clerk of the House, were associated with him in 
this indictment, but not in the trial. He was released 
on bail, pending his appeal for a new trial ; and when 
this was refused, he returned and gave himself up. 
He was finally pardoned as to that case ; but there 
are eight other indictments against him, on the same 
docket, embracing about all the fraudulent charges 
known to the judiciary. Is now happy in the Treas- 
ury Department in Washington, appointed under the 
Civil Service Reform Policy of President Hayes, for 
entire proficiency in all financial operations. 

Robert Smalls, late member of Congress. His 
political influence was owing, mainly, to his being 



230 APPENDIX. 

head bribe-broker for his Congressional District, 
He was tried and convicted on an indictment for 
bribery. His release was precisely similar to Car- 
dozo's ; and, with him, he is sharing the munificent 
fruits of President Hayes' Civil Service Reform. 

S. A. SwAiLS, senator from Williamsburg, and there 
having the same sway and infamous notoriety, as 
Whittemore, in Darlington, and Joe Crews, in Lau- 
rens, was not indicted in Richland, but promised im- 
munity, if he would vacate his Presidency of the 
Senate, make restitution, and go and sin no more. 
(Cleaves, Lieutenant-Governor, and cx-officio Presi- 
dent of the Senate, had already vacated his seat, and 
on the same terms). Instead of manifesting any peni- 
tence, Swails returned to his countv, and became so 
desperately incendiary in his course, that the citizens 
very unanimously invited him to leave. After this, 
getting his carpet-bag filled with grievances and per- 
secutions, he, too, went to Washington, and sat down 
with Cardozo and Smalls. Finding his quarters so 
comfortable, he sent word to his friend, 

Sam Lee, of Sumter, another local politician of 
the same complexion and principles, to raise some 
row at home, and come on for his reward. This, 
Sam was not slow to do, and to-day, is sitting at the 
financial fountain of greenbacks. Strange sight, even 
in these days of political wonders, to behold Cardozo, 
Smalls, Swails and Lee flying from the penitentiary 
at home, to the hospitable shelter of the United 
States Treasury. 



APPENDIX. 231 

As an appropriate base for this column of notorious 
knaves, it is only necessary to write the name of 
Franklin J. Moses. 



It must be borne in mind, that the work of this 
Committee was confined to a particular class of frauds. 
Very little inves-tigation was had into the " Bond " 
question, and none whatever into the infamous " Land 
Commission," with C. P. Leslie at its head. If the 
attempt should ever be made to publish all these 
frauds to the world, in the language of the Evangelist, 
it might be said, " I suppose that even the world itself 
could not contain the books that should be written. '^ 



9 66 



